Star Crossed Hunters
by SteelPredator
Summary: Lex's past comes back to haunt her as the Antarctica Incident is brought nerve-wreckingly close to home- aliens, hunters and all. Meanwhile, a hunter she believed to be dead returns to the shadows, searching for her, praying he's not too late. pls review
1. Prologue

All he could see was black. Perpetual Darkness with no end in sight. He sighed in his despair. He had failed. He had failed his Blooding ritual. True, he had obtained the mark of the warrior, but it seemed so pointless to him now. What use was the mark when he hadn't even survived to make it to his next hunt, or any further past his coming of age? Hopefully she would carry it better than he had. The ooman female who he'd fought alongside during the ritual, who had returned his weapon to him, and had saved his life while under attack by the hard meat. But she hadn't managed to save him this time. He owed her a life debt, a debt which he could never repay; to the ooman who had named him Scar. An ooman named Lex.

His thoughts turned to her, the only glimmer in this endless blackness. He had hunted her, for she and her fellow oomans had unintentionally removed the plasma-casters he and his comrades needed to obtain as part of the ritual and to slay the hard meat. He had lost his two comrades to the hard meat, while she lost hers to his fellow hunters, and the hard meat who either slew them or implanted them with the hard meat embryos. Then the two opposing survivors became allies. As she said: "The enemy of the enemy is my friend."- or something along those lines.

He still couldn't remember exactly how this strange alliance had been forged, between hunter and prey. It had been in the heat of battle with the hard meat, two of which she had managed to slay while alerting and ultimately saving him from the jaws of death. Not bad for an ooman, let alone an ooman female. Her courage had proved her worthy of being his ally, and perhaps... something more than that...

He had forged her weapons of her own from the bodies of the hard meats she had slain, mostly for her protection but also as his sign of respect for her as a warrior, and a hunter, like himself. Her first weapons were also her first trophies. It seemed fitting.

It had become clear to him that even with this strange ooman as his ally, they were both in way over their heads, and he was, or at least had been, several feet taller than her. She had been forced to end the life of her comrade, trapped in a cocoon and with a young hard meat ready to burst forth, to end his suffering. That was the noble thing to do. She may not have killed the hard meat that dwelled within her companion, he had that pleasure, but he couldn't help but admire her, for her courage, her spirit, and her honour. She would make a fine warrior... A fine hunter...

He knew their only option was to destroy the complex, along with all the hard meat before they reached the surface of the ice. The ooman's companion had been right- they mustn't reach the surface. Hard meat where known for their adaptability, the cold wouldn't have stayed them long. They would have spread to the lands where oomans dwelled, and his kind would have a massive infestation to deal with. His emergency self-destruct unit had been their only option, (he sniggered when he remembered he'd had to explain it to her with hand gestures) she had plainly understood, telling him she hoped for every last hard meat's destruction. He silently shared her blood-lust. He wasn't hunting for honour or trophies, not this time. He wanted revenge for his comrades' deaths, and the only way to ensure that was to wipe every last hard meat off the face of the continent. He'd set the timer's setting to maximum to give him and his hunting partner time to escape the exploding pyramid. It had been a last resort.

Their journey to the surface thankfully had been swift. An ooman transport module had been set up to carry them out of the cavern in which the pyramid was based, only the hard meat had overtaken us and were already there. He was attacked, and sustained an injury from the hard meat's tail, but the ooman had saved him, with his own weapon. If he had been able to speak her language, he would have thanked her.

The transport module had got them out of range of the explosion. but not out of the range of collapsing ice. It had been a frantic dash to escape their entombment in the icy bowels of the cavern, but they had both escaped without sustaining any injury. He and his ooman partner had done it, together...

It was then he had realised how much he had come to respect this small ooman female. For her courage, for her skills as a hunter, but also for preserving his life. He deemed her a worthy warrior, and hunter. Worthy enough to see the true face of her comrade... and to share the glory of the hunt.

He had removed his mask, revealing his true, alien features. Most oomans would have screamed or ran away, but she stood her ground. She didn't even flinch. This ooman had a lot of courage. Only more proof that she was worthy of bearing the mark...

He had removed one of the hard meats' fingers and held it to her face, making it clear what he was about to do. She didn't resist it. She simply allowed him to mark her, barely flinching at the acidic blood of the hard meat. She then returned the honour by returning the spear he'd forged for her earlier. To be presented with another's trophy...

He had become attached to this strange ooman, not just in respect for her as a fellow hunter, but something beyond that...If he been able to speak in ooman tongue, he would have asked her to return with him. To the ship. To the next planet. To the next hunt. To the next... he sighed when he remembered that was all now impossible. For more reasons than one. As it was, they had just stood their, staring at each other, both sharing a sense of some connection between the two of them, only to be snapped back to reality by the untimely arrival of the hard meat queen. Enraged by the destruction of her offspring, and injuries from the blast, she had attacked the allies. He had tried to protect them both by attacking the queen with his shuriken, managing to slice off sections of the queens' overly sized crown-like cranium. In both cultures, both ooman and yautja, nobody likes a big-head.

But this had done little more than anger the queen, and had sent him crashing through the remains of the abandoned ooman settlement with one sweep of her mighty tail. It had hurt like hell!

When he had the strength to stand, he had realised the situation. The queen was attacking the ooman. HIS ooman, trapped beneath an ooman water storage unit on the edge of the cliff. they had gone through too much together for her life to end like this. He had rushed to her aid, landing a blow which forced the queen away from her. One life debt repaid. One left to go.

It then became clear to him that she had developed some form of plan. The Queen had become bound in an ooman chain, which his ooman was trying to attach to the water storage unit. It struck him as genius! The pair of them might not be a match for her, but try being submerged miles below the surface of freezing sea water on for size! All the same, the ooman had been struggling to attach the chain to the unit. The queen was too far away and the chain was too simply too short. He'd had to intervene...

He'd grasped the chain, summoned all of his strength into one great heave, and given the ooman the extra length of chain she needed to finally leash the queen to the unit. She called out to him that she'd succeeded. That was when the pain had struck. A deep, searing pain had pierced his body, and erupted through the other side of his body. The snow was stained luminous green as the queen had lifted him, skewered on the end of her tail towards her mouth. He couldn't see the ooman anymore. All he could see was the black, soulless face of the queen, staring blindly and snarling mockingly in victory. It was clear what she meant, even though all she ever uttered was shrieks and growls: "Game Over, yautja."

Her victory was very short lived. With a sudden jerk, he was thrown from her cruel tail into the snow debris, his side still burning in indescribable agony. He couldn't see, blinded by pain, but a crash and two very satisfying splashes told the ooman had done her job. The unit had been dislodged, and the queen had been dragged over the cliff to her icy tomb beneath the frozen wastes. The cold wouldn't kill her but, but drowning would.

Then, all was silence, expect for the soft sound of footsteps and the crunch of fresh snow underfoot. He had regained his vision, temporarily at least, to see her, the ooman, kneeling beside him, looking down at him through grief filled eyes. There wasn't anything she could have done to help, and they both knew it. He had wanted to reach up and touch her face, to comfort her in some way before he lost his ability to do anything at all, but his arms had simply been too heavy. As heavy as lead. A tear had formed in her eye, rolling down her face onto his, as she stared down at him. She was grieving for him. Even when marked with sadness, her face was beautiful, dark against the unforgiving white and grey surrounding them. He'd never looked at oomans as beautiful before, and never would again. Her face had been the last thing he saw before the darkness took him, but not before he had breathed his final word, a word which he didn't care she wouldn't understand in his native language: ".......Lex....."

She seemed to understand, for although he couldn't see her through the darkness, he heard her last word, as quiet as a whisper of the wind: ".........Scar............"

Then, everything was gone.

"Scar"

Everything except the echo of that one word, repeating over and over again.

"Scar",

All the time getting louder and louder until it became a droning hum, starting to cause him pain.

"Scar".

Such a pain! Such an indescribable, agonizing pain!

"Scar"

He couldn't take it any longer!

"Scar"

Scar suddenly sat bolt upright, alarming the healers who were attending to his gaping wounds.

"Lex"

The healers stared in disbelief. Scar didn't see any of them. He just looked straight ahead, staring at nothing.

"Lex"

One of the healers turned to face a computer and stared. The Readings were going wild.

"Lex"

Finally, one of the healers grabbed hold of a breathing mask and clamped it down between Scar's mandibles.

"Lex"

The Gas took effect in a matter of seconds. As Scar's mind clouded over, he slumped back down onto the bed, healers continuously fussing around him.

Just before the gentle caress of the darkness settled over him again, one word escaped his lips, going unnoticed by the healers as the mask muffled his speech:

"Lex"

The hunter's eyes finally closed and his mind as blank as slate, aside from one name and the image of an ooman woman.

"Lex..........."


	2. That Name

"So, healer, anything new to report?"

"He's currently stable, Elder, but he still remains unconscious"

"That is to be expected. The life-support matrix is designed to keep the injured unconscious."

"Yes, Elder, my apologies."

"Good. Incompetence is unacceptable, especially from a trained healer who is responsible for countless lives of our wounded. Now, let me repeat the question. Do you or do you not have anything new to report?"

The healer shivered as the Elder almost shouted at him through the coms system.

"Well, the tissue is certainly improving. The gash from the queen's tail will certainly leave a nasty scar, but no internal organs appear to be damaged in that region of his body."

"And the other _region_, healer?"

"I must admit, Elder, I've never seen anything like it before-"

"You wouldn't. Such a scenario has never happened before- in the entire history of creation!"

"Yes, Elder, my apologies. As I was saying," the healer held his breath, waiting for the Elder to interrupt, but, thankfully, he didn't. "The xenomorph, or hard meat, as they are more commonly known-"

"I'm well aware of what they're called, healer. I didn't ask for a lecture, I asked for a report on the patient's health."

"Yes, Elder, my apologies," the healer was really starting to tire of this. So was Scar. He had been listening for a while- he'd regained consciousness while the Elder confronted the harassed-feeling healer- and his mind wasn't too clear yet, but he listened with interest. He wanted the facts straight, but, still, the thought filled him with dread. A hard meat had impregnated him? How was that possible?

Then he remembered. A hard meat larva had attacked him after he had marked his forehead and mask. He didn't remember much about the attack; after all, the thing would have rendered him unconscious while it implanted the embryo in his chest. His mind was still hazy, but one thought struck him: how in the name of Hunter's Moon had he survived?

"All I can say, Elder, is that he was very lucky." Scar dropped his chain of thought to listen to the conversation continue. "It appears that although the larva had succeeded in planting the embryo in the hunter's chest, it appears that he didn't go down without a fight, if you know what I mean, Elder."

Scar's head was reeling. He didn't remember fighting the cursed thing when it latched onto his face, but, then again, there was a lot he didn't remember. Like that name. That single name that he just couldn't grasp. He knew it was important. It was the name of someone he felt fond of- that certainly narrowed down the possibilities considerably, as there weren't that many individuals he felt attached to. His mother had died the day before his blooding ritual, which had made him all the more determined to survive it, and his father, well, Scar didn't even want to think about it. Just thinking about it made the yautja feel physically sick. He had been training for the hunt most of his life, and had never attached himself to any of the female yautja, simply because he didn't have the time. He had been trying to prove himself as a warrior all his life, and he had never felt particularly attached to anyone. Like his old master, he had always been a lone wolf. It couldn't be his master, that he certain, but, still, that name…

"-so, to summarize, the damage was minimal when it "hatched" so to speak, from the hunter's chest. Luckily, his undamaged lung managed to compensate for the other while we were stitching him back up. The wound was severe, though, Elder. The only explanation of his survival I can think of would be sheer willpower. Something definitely kept his mind together while he was unconscious, Elder, and all that I can say is that it was very powerful."

There was silence. Scar wracked his memory. He knew what had saved him. That "Something" as the healer called it was that name. If only he could remember what name and whose it was. How could he forget it? It had been a short, simple name, so it couldn't be a fellow yautja. Plus, it had been repeating, over and over again inside his head like the drone of some angry insect, but still, he could remember nothing.

The Elder remained quiet for a while, which was most unlike him.

"Intriguing… tell me, do you have any idea what that "something" might have been?"

"That, we cannot comprehend, Elder. The mind probe would be too dangerous to use at this stage in his recovery- the shock might kill him. Although…"

The healer broke off, lost in thought. Scar and the Elder waited impatiently. Scar had never been one for patients, and was about to demand an answer from the healer when the Elder beat him to it.

"Well, healer? _Although,_ what?"

"Well, we did have a scare earlier. The patient awoke in the middle of the surgery, completely without warning. Of course, we sedated him before he could cause himself any real damage He just sat their, staring like he was in a trance, repeating the same word over and over again."

Scar's heart skipped a beat. Finally, that word, the word his mind had been trying to grasp for what seemed like hours. It was coming back to, all of it. Entering the pyramid with his comrades and hunting the humans before the hard meat caught them. Witnessing his fellow warriors being slain by the hard meat, and taking his revenge by slicing the head of one in two. Running to escape the exploding pyramid, and the near fatal battle with the hard meat queen. Most importantly, that face. The face of the ooman woman who had fought along side, marked as a warrior, and had sat with him, grieving for his apparent death. Her name was of the tip of his tongue…

"What word was that, healer?"

"Lex"

The healer stared as Scar sat upright, once again staring at nothing and ignoring the stabbing pains in his chest as if his flesh was being torn open. The Elder fell unusually silent.

"That word was Lex…" said Scar in a neutral, emotionless voice.

The young predator laid down on the bed again, the pain in his chest lessening. The Healer looked pale under his mandibles, as if he were about to faint. The Elder remained unnaturally silent. Scar chuckled.

"You might want to check that life support matrix, healer. If it's supposed to keep me unconscious, it doesn't appear to be functioning properly."


	3. The Big Apple

She stirred in her sleep, her dreams turbulent. Every night it was the same: The pyramid, the strange serpents, the strange alien hunters. The one she called Scar- the one who had saved her from the monstrous queen of the serpents- impaled as he tried to protect her, and watching the light leave his eyes. Even in her sleep, a single tear slid down her face onto the pillow.

Then she heard a cry. A cry which made her blood freeze, as cold as the ice on which she knelt. It was high and shrill, coming from nowhere in the frozen wastes. She got to her feet, clutching the spear her fallen comrade had given, only to have it knocked from her hand as she was bowled off her feet and pinned to the ground by cruel, talloned hands. She opened her eyes only to look straight into the blank, soulless face, staring blindly at her through mere ghosts of eyes in the blunt, rounded skull. A mouth full of needle-sharp teeth drooling over her face like toothpaste from a never exhausting tube, opening to reveal a second set of equally vicious jaws, which seemed to sneer at her helplessness and vulnerability. She prayed that Scar would awaken, rip the thing off her and fill its body with shurikens, but her prayers went unanswered. The jaws lunged forward, to pierce her face, sending a hot sharp pain coursing through her body. Lex awoke to find herself lying face down on the floor, the carpet and sheets stained with blood from a nose bleed she'd received on impact with the ground, her body drenched in cold sweat.

She picked herself up, taking a tissue from her bedside table and dabbing at her nose. Luckily, it wasn't broken, but that was the least of her troubles. She sat down on the bed, unconsciously touching the mark on her cheek. The hunter's mark. Her hand wandered under the bed and drew out the staff-like weapon the supposed Leader of the hunters had given her before they departed with Scar's body. Lex couldn't help bring the tissue to her eye. It had been nearly five years since that fateful trip to Antarctica, (five years exactly within two months), but she couldn't shake away those painful memories anymore than the mark on her cheek. But, then again, even if she could, she wouldn't. Sure, it attracted glances and even funny looks on the street, but she carried it with the same pride he would have done. It was his gift to her, and she carried the mark for them both.

She sighed and began to get ready for work. After the incident in Antarctica, she couldn't bring herself to guide expeditions anymore. She still had adventure in her blood, but she'd made relatively few visits to the mountains and caves since. She'd settled into a quiet job in an office within one of New York's many skyscrapers, far from anything that could be considered life-threatening. For now, at least…

She washed the last of the blood from her face, and applied her makeup, which did little to hide the mark on her face. She couldn't be bothered to hide it anymore. It was impossible to hide something like that, unless she tried wearing an extremely large, floppy hat, a balaclava or a mask. No, she was proud of it, as strange as it may sound.

Fully dressed, she tucked her briefcase under her arm and headed for the door, pausing to turn off the radio, only for her hand to freeze an inch from the button.

"In other news, it has recently been announced that what may be the archaeological find of the century has recently been discovered on the largely unheard of Bouvet Island, Antarctica." The newsreader sounded particuarlly smug. But lex could feel her blood beginning to freeze over.

"Redway Industries, who took over the former Weyland Industries after the late Charles Bishop Weyland and an entire archeological team mysteriously vanished during an investigation of the exact same site, have discovered the remains of ancient complex located beneath the ice. From records sourced from the original company, the structure appears to have been a pyramid, which, for some unknown reason, has been reduced to rubble."

Lex felt herself breathe easier. So they'd found the pyramid- or at least what was left of it- but Scar had destroyed the God-forsaken place. She'd seen it with her own eyes. Nothing could have survived that. All that was left would be a pile of rubble and dust, buried underneath tonnes of dislodged ice. They'd find very little worthwhile, for the hieroglyphics would have been wiped clean from the walls, and the bodies of the serpents, humans and the hunters would have been incinerated. At least that's what she hoped. She turned the radio off, and closed the door behind her. As she desended to the ground floor she just kept praying that Redway's team hadn't returned with anything, anything at all. She wanted every trace of what had happened on that damned island to stay wiped off the face of the Earth. But she knew too well that was wishful thinking. All that she could do was pray that it stayed buried. What happened five years ago was best left undisturbed.

--------------

For Scar, the five years had felt like twenty. The main factor that contributed to this was sheer bredom. Wounds like this took a long time to heal, which was taking even longer because of his stubborness. The healer had ordered him to rest, and he had done very little but rest ever since being brought aboard the ship. He had tried to sneak away from the healer's chamber as often as he could, but his movements kept reopening his wounds. To Scar, the treatment was a lot worse than wounds themselves. Eventually he had succumbed to the Elder's demands that he must not leave the chamber. Over the months he had improved, and got to the stage to take training again, toned down of course, to strengthen his body, but he had found another way to help pass the time. He had asked an Elder, who had been his mother's sister, to teach him ooman tongue. When asked why, he had simply answered: "Strategical purposes".

This was partly true, but Scar kept his real motives to himself. The yautja frequently visited Earth on hunting trips, as oomans were one of the most numerous and diverse prey there was. If you took one ooman, another simply took its place. In a way, the yautja benefitted oomans, by keeping their numbers down. True, being able to speak human tongue may be able to help him to single out a strong opponent, but Scar wasn't so interested in oomans as prey anymore.

What he was interested in was one single ooman. A single female in a hundred billion. Although the chances of an encounter was as slight as locating a single drop in an ocean, Scar secretly hoped that on a visit to Earth, he would find her. He knew it was foolish, and unheard of among the yautja race, but he secretly wished that someday they would hunt side by side once again. As a fellow hunter, of course. Maybe, in time, as…

Scar shook his head, mentally scolding himself. It was unthinkable. It was impossible. He had had to keep her identity secret when healers and Elders alike had questioned him as to the meaning of the word he had continuously repeated when he awoke from death, to keep her from meeting a similar, if not worse fate to his. She may carry the mark of the warrior, and a yautja combispear, but that was a sign of respect, not a guarantee to her safety from his kind.

But, all the same, a yautja can dream…

He was suddenly snapped back to reality by the sudden arrival of the healer.

"So, G'raal, how are we feeling today?"

"Bored," Scar replied. It was a massive understatement if there ever was one.

"Yes, I can see that," said the healer, his tone expressing how tired he was from hearing the same response every time he asked the question. "However, I have some good news for you."

Scar sat up, interested.

"The Elders and I have come to the agreement that you should be permitted to go on a hunting expedition within the next week. Your recovery nears completion, although I still believe that rest would preferable, given your… condition."

Scar didn't even hear the last part. He could barely contain his joy, so much so that he had to roar to let off his emotions.

"Yes, I assumed your reaction would envolve that level of spirit. That's why I came prepared." The healer said, removing a pair of earplugs from within his dreadlocks. Scar barely noticed him. He hadn't so happy since, well, ever.

"Which planet?" he asked, absent-mindedly.

"Earth," the healer replied, tapping a sequence into a computer which immediately projected a 3D image of the Earth, zoming into a specific location on the surface, eventually homing in on a video projection of a city square, crawling with oomans. "Namely the Sector and human motropolis New York, North America." The healer finished.

Scar felt like this day couldn't get any better. It simply couldn't. Nothing could possibly ruin it. If only he'd seen a particular figure amongst the sea of faces in the crowd. A single ooman female, dark skinned, with a distinctive mark on her cheek…


	4. Ghosts of the Pasts

So far, today had been pretty normal for Lex. She's entered the building at 9:00am, worked flat out until lunch, and eaten with her colleagues in the nearest Starbucks. But she wasn't in good spirits. A life of no excitement or thrills of any sort had its perks- for one thing you were more likely to survive to see another day- but it was growing increasingly boring. She longed for the excitement, the adrenalin rush, the adventure. Later, she wished she'd been more careful what she wished for.

She had just returned to her desk when a voice spoke out from the doorway. "Miss Alexa Woods, I presume?" she turned to see a tall, stern looking man dressed in what appeared to be the attire of an army officer. He had a hard, thick-set face, but smiled at her warmly as he entered. Lex groaned mentally. She had been followed everywhere by government agents up until about a year ago, always asking the same questions.

"Yes, you do. Look, I know where this is going, and I've told you government guys a million times what happened. A tanker leaked in cavern, which was ignited by a flare. The flames spread to a chamber containing large amounts of an explosive compound used in ritual displays. The entire pyramid was-"

"Forgive me, Miss Woods, but I believe you misunderstand me. I am not a member of the US government. My name is Kayne, I represent Redway Industries, your former employer, I understand."

"I worked for _Weyland_ Industries on one occasion, and one occasion only," Lex replied. "I never exactly considered them my employer. Furthermore, I cannot see what Redway would want with me."

"That is understandable, Miss Woods, and I understand that this may be a sensitive issue, but Mr Redway is not at all interested in the incident that occurred in 2004."

Lex found that very hard to believe.

"No, Miss Woods, I have come to you today, to ask for your help."

"I beg your pardon?" Lex felt taken aback.

"As you may be aware, Redway Industries has recently uncovered the remains of the Bouvet Island Pyramid. Several finds in particular have caught Mr Redway's attention, and he requests your assistance in identifying them. We are not expecting your services for free, of course, you will be paid generously if you agree to comply." Kayne spoke in a very plain voice, typical of a business man, which sounding very rehearsed.

It didn't take Lex's suspicions long to become aroused. "What do you mean by finds?" she asked. "And why do you need my help, anyway? I'm an environmental geologist, not an archaeologist."

"Mr Redway has consulted some of the top-ranking archaeologists in the world, Miss Woods, and all results have been the same: nothing. That's why we need your help. You happen to be the only surviving member of the only team to see the interior of the pyramid first-hand, so you are the person we have left to turn to. We will give you 24 hours to reply. If within that time you decide to agree to our terms, here's my card."

He placed a card on Lex's desk, the Redway Industries logo, a large red-and-orange "R", in the top-right corner almost glowing in the office lighting. Name, address and number. That was all.

"Thank you," Lex replied, pushing the card to the side of her desk. "But the answer is still no. I'm not prepared to travel half way around the world just to take a look at a few lumps of rubble"

"You're not expected to, Miss Woods. The finds have been returned here, to New York, for analysis; you're less than a mile from them as we speak. And we're not talking about rubble, either. Good Day to you." Kayne left without another word.

-------------

Scar was preparing himself for the hunt- packing and checking all weapons and equipment before boarding the pod which would take him to Earth. His armour had been cleaned and polished with a special compound which would prevent light reflecting off them and give him away. His wrist blades retracted into their respective gauntlets, half a dozen shurikens were mounted on his belt, several laser nets and a net gun attached to his forearms, his plasma caster was mounted proudly atop his left shoulder, his wrist device checked for any malfunctions or faulty circuitry, and a new combi spear mounted on his back, ready to be drawn in battle.

The last item to be checked was his self-destruct device- the small metallic box clipped onto his wrist. Scar wasn't too impressed with the new model, as they were all now fitted with a second setting as standard, which controlled the force of the blast should the bomb be activated. Scar didn't see much point in it- if the worst case scenario were to occur, and he had no choice but to use it, he would have wanted to take as much of the enemy with him as possible, not carefully control the blast so that only he was destroyed. It was just... not right. Then again, you never know when things like these would come in handy.

He put on his mask- the only piece of his original equipment he had left- and entered the pod and closed the hatch. Several other yautja were departing the ship simultaneously, one to accompany him to New York, a pair headed for British Isles, a trio to Afghanistan where a massive ooman conflict was taking place, and an experienced, high-ranking warrior to the Earth sector known as "Colorado" to inspect the results of a recent pest control operation, involving the yautja-hard meat hybrid that had broken free of his body five years ago, and several other escaped hard meat larva which had succeeded in impregnating several oomans.

Scar couldn't help but shiver at the thought of that hard meat bursting out of his chest, but also at the thought his old master, whose name roughly translated into ooman tongue had been Wolf, who had been at the centre of the operation when an ooman bomb had destroyed the entire area. No word had been received from Wolf since, so he was presumed dead. Scar had been disappointed when he learned another yautja was being sent to the area in his stead, as he sorely wanted revenge on the oomans who had killed his master. Nevertheless, he was glad to be going on the hunt again after so long cooped up in the mother ship.

Their was a click, a sequence of several short blasts from the back of the pod, and then a drifting sensation, closely followed by a long fall. The pod had been released.

-------------

Lex sat in bed, to nervous to go to sleep. Kayne said that the team had returned to New York with the finds, and that even the world's top ranking archaeologists didn't have a clue what they were. That had to mean it was something alien; either serpent or hunter. She just didn't get it. Nothing could have survived the blast.

Nothing.

But now she was not so sure. If she was right, she knew that this could only end badly. All she could do was pray that Kayne had been lying when he told her that they hadn't returned with rubble, and that he had just said that to get her interest, but she knew that was very unlikely.

She would have to see for herself. Only then could she sleep easy.

She sighed and turned on her bedroom light, and fumbled with the telephone as she picked up the card Kayne had given her and began punching in the number. As she dialled the last digit, something caught her eye. It pair of bright, fiery streaks falling to Earth near the expanse of green trees which boarded Central Park.

_Probably just kids screwing around with fireworks_, she sighed as she held the receiver to her ear.

-------------

The pod hit the lake with an almighty splash, sending a family of ducks scattering. It embedded itself in mud, becoming lodged firmly and anchored itself to the lake bed. Scar growled in annoyance. This wasn't exactly how he pictured his first hunt after five years of waiting starting out- soaking wet, covered in mud and with a short circuiting cloaking system to boot. Then again, he didn't want the oomans to find the pod. He entered the air lock, which closed behind him, and swam out into the lake.

Breaking the surface, he swam to the opposite bank, his cloaking system sparking and spitting like an angry snake. He hauled himself out of the water, and headed for the nearest trees, where he waited for his cloaking system to stop sparking. An annoying peeping noise in his ear made him start to worry. Had the water short-circuited something? Scar checked his equipment, but could see nothing wrong apart from the continuous sparking of his cloaking system.

A moment later, he was joined by the other yautja who had accompanied him. The older hunter took one look at Scar and chuckled.

"G'raal, I'm not sure the cloaking system works if you're trying to avoid detection with a small fowl on your head."

He reached up and put his hand to Scar's dreadlocks. When he withdrew it, sure enough, a small duckling was clenched in his fist, cheeping loudly as the predator held it up for Scar to see.

"Shut Up, Kahn." Scar growled as he shook off the pond weed which clung to his body-netting like creepers to a wall. Kahn just laughed and tossed the flailing duckling back into the reservoir.

"Let the hunt begin..."


	5. Two Scents

The coffee machine whirred as it spilled its contents into a mug. Lex sighed. She'd hardly slept a wink for the past week and she was going to need all the caffeine she could get to be ready for today. She was feeling even more anxious as the hour ticked closer and closer, minute by nerve-wrecking minute. It had been agreed that Redway's chauffer would pick her up at noon, and it was only 9:45am. Another 2 ½ agonizing hours to wait. Lex just hoped the wait was scarier than whatever Redway's team had dug up.

After a week of anxiously awaiting the specified date, the hour finally came. She descended the stairs and stood by the roadside, as a large black BMW pulled up. The driver's window rolled down, revealing a very familiar face.

"Ah, Miss Woods, glad to see your change of heart!" Kayne smiled out of the window like a small boy who'd just beaten the record of his favourite computer game.

Lex smiled back, trying hard not to make it look too forced, and climbed into the car.

-------------

By now, Scar was feeling particularly fed up. There were too many oomans to count. From above, they moved in rivers of heads, clinging to the concrete walkways which boarded a wider, darker one where ooman transport moved agonisingly slow, beeping at each other and their drivers yelling at the vehicles in front to move. Scar peered down from a flagpole a few feet below the roof of an ooman building, and couldn't help but cough and splutter as fumes wafted upwards, making breathing through his mask difficult. He silently cursed the human's primitive internal combustion engines, for they seemed to do nothing but fill the air with toxic chemicals and moved at such a slow pace they were easily outstripped by the jostling crowds on the pavement. The fumes weren't the only annoyance, as he was constantly at war with small, grey birds that continuously tried to settle or defecate on him or the pole he was balanced on.

Scar growled in his annoyance. So far, he'd managed to pick up a few trophies, but nothing of much value- mainly the skulls of dishonourable lowlifes and cowardly thieves, who attacked other oomans on the streets, stealing their belongings and openly attacking them, unprovoked, before running to hide in the alley ways that seemed to line every street in this strange ooman city.

He would follow them into their hiding place, still cloaked, and pick them off, one by one. Even when armed, none of them put up a decent fight. Anything they had taken he had tried to return to their ooman victims, usually dropping it from the roof tops as they headed to inform the ooman authorities. He felt strangely warm, knowing it was the noble thing to do, and couldn't help but grin behind his mask when they looked around for whoever had returned their belongings, but could see nothing except moonlight and shadow. After that, he left them alone. It wouldn't be a fair fight, anyway, and there was finer prey elsewhere. He could smell it.

Despite the scent, Scar couldn't help but feel disappointed when he failed to find a single worthy prey item. But that was only a minor annoyance compared to comrade. His name, roughly translated, was Shadow, and he certainly lived up to his name. Arrogant and big-headed, his specialty was ambush sneak attacks, and his unfortunate prey never knew what had hit them until it was too late.

Shadow hadn't had much more luck than Scar, but gloated over his considerably bigger pile of trophies on the roof. He had run into an ooman community that seemed to thrive on theft and murder- street-gangs, he believed the oomans called them. Even when armed, they hadn't lasted long against the predator's sheer overwhelming power and speed. It had been over in a matter of seconds, and done so silently not even the felines that patrolled the streets in search of small rodents seemed to notice. Scar growled under his mandibles as he listened to the annoying squeaking sound of Shadow polishing his prized skull on the roof, while scanning the city, searching for the scent. It was faint, but familiar. He just couldn't grasp what it was.

Five years of near isolation on a ship floating in deep space will do that to yautja.

The other scents that wafted from the city floor didn't help either, blending together to form a thick grey smog that was almost unreadable.

He had just slashed out for the fifteenth time at the flying pests that fluttered around him when he caught something on the wind. It wasn't the smell of prey, but it was familiar all the same. It was something… enticing.

He had to find it. Now.

He couldn't explain why, but he felt compelled to go after it, as if nothing else mattered.

He jumped up on the pole, startling the pigeons which took off in a cloud of loose feathers and vile excrement. Shadow turned to look down at his comrade.

"What's up with you?" he growled.

"Prey," Scar growled back, aggression deep in his voice. "And it's mine. If you follow me, I swear by Hunter's Moon I'll turn your head into my next trophy and mount it on the wall as soon as I get home". With that, he leapt to the next pole and onto the rooftop, setting off at a sprint and bounding from one roof to the next.

Shadow was puzzled by Scar's reaction. True, the pair of them had never exactly seen eye-to-eye, and there was always a certain degree of rivalry among young hunters to outshine the other, but why had his comrade reacted so aggressively?

He snorted. _Probably jealous,_ he said to himself, smugly. _He's only made 3 catches so far, none of much value. _

He went back to polishing the pile of trophies, piling them up into a small pyramid. 7 pearly white faces stared back at him, their eyes black and empty. Most still had the lower jaw, and seemed to grin back at him from the corner in which they lay. Only the biggest was missing the jaw, and looked strangely depressed without it. Shadow held the skull up to the light and peered at it with a sinister smile. "Don't worry,"he clicked soothingly to his prize._ "_You won't be needing it again."

-------------

As they drove along, Lex eyed her surroundings wearily. Two men, armed with machine guns sat either side of her, their eyes averted. Both wore dark glasses and looked extremely edgy. This didn't do anything to raise Lex's spirits. Something told her that this was going to be a little more serious than taking a look at a few pieces of smashed pottery.

There was a very awkward silence which hung in the air like thick fog. It was only broken when Kayne brought the car to a standstill. "Well, here we are, Miss Woods."

Lex looked up at the building. It was a skyscraper, one of the tallest she'd seen. It looked perfectly ordinary, unless you counted the enormous red-and-orange "R" logo, and which clashed horribly with the granite-grey stone it was built from.

It was obvious Redway liked showing off.

It looked like the last place you'd expect anything terrifying or potentially life-threatening to happen, but this did nothing to lessen Lex's anxieties. First hand experience had taught her that things aren't always what they seem.

Both guards left the car and stood either side of the granite steps which led up to the great oak doors. At the top of the stairs, surrounded by men donning white lab coats stood a man in his late thirties with flaming red hair and moustache, with a heavily freckled face. Now Lex could see where the logo's colour scheme came from. Redway was wearing a smart black suit and tie and smiled at Lex with teeth which were so white she secretly wondered whether his dentist had replaced them all with breath mints or chips of marble.

Lex climbed out of the car and started to ascend the steps. Suddenly, the back of her neck prickled. She looked around, but could see nothing. She shook herself. _Stop being paranoid, _she told herself, and continued to climb.

"Ah, Miss Alexa Woods! Pleased to make your acquaintance!" Redway held out his hand as Lex reached the top step.

"A pleasure," she replied, trying not to make her tone of voice sound too forced.

"Well, no use chin-wagging out here all day, let's see what you can make of my little beauties!" Redway reminded Lex of an overexcited child who'd just been presented with a very large bag of candy; his voice was high pitched as if he could barely contain his excitement. Obviously he had no idea what he dealing with.

_But, then again,_ she thought to herself. _Neither do I. _

She just smiled and allowed herself to be lead through the towering oak doors.

Time to face the music.

-------------

Scar had been following the scent for a while, swinging and jumping from pole to pole and rooftop to rooftop. It seemed to be coming from a particularly large and important looking piece of ooman transport. The ooman who owned it certainly had some status. He switched to heat vision and scanned the vehicle. There were four oomans- one piloting the unit, three riding in the back. Two of them were male, and armed. Finally, a possible challenge!

It was just as they slowed down he noticed the fourth heat signature, in between the two males. It seemed… familiar. He could tell it was female, but he couldn't identify her without getting a good look at her. Finally, the transport came to a stop. Scar switched to regular vision and scanned the scene through his visors.

Scar sniffed the air, confused. There were _two_ familiar scents here. One he recognized straight away as prey. And it wasn't ooman. It was fainter than the other scent, and was coming from the building. The other was a lot stronger, but different. It wasn't prey. But, then, what was it?

Only when the three males exited the unit did he realise what it was. It was the female. The ooman female in the back of the vehicle. Her scent was familiar. So was her heat signature. And yet…

He clung to the pole, keeping a still as he could. He may be cloaked, but that didn't stop his movement from giving his position away. He crouched with baited breath, waiting for her to leave her transport.

When she did, he zoomed in on her head, trying to get a glimpse of her face. But all he got was strangely familiar dark hair. She was dark skinned, with quite a slender, athletic build.

Scar stared at her.

Could it be?

She suddenly looked around, startled by something.

Scar nearly fell off the pole in shock, partly because he had been leaning so far forward to look at her.

It was her. It was the ooman woman who'd been at his blooding ritual, who had fought the hard meat drones and queen with him, who he had marked as a warrior, and who had saved his life- more than once. She had knelt beside him and mourned his death, and her name had kept his mind together in the nearly endless embrace of darkness; and had named him Scar.

Then, a sickening thought struck Scar like a lightning bolt. She was in danger. She was potential prey. Of course, he would never lay a finger on her, he owed her a life debt, after all, but Scar wasn't so sure about shadow. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and turned his attention back to Lex.

She looked just as he had remembered her- dark skin, light built, slender bodied, shoulder length dark hair, and dark brown eyes. She still carried the mark of the warrior on her left cheek, slightly faded by time, but still plainly visible. Unconsciously, he reached up to touch the same mark on his mask, only to lose his balance and slide off it, only just managing to hold on with one hand. He growled as a particularly fat pigeon settled on his still cloaked hand, only to fly off again when he extended his wrist blades.

"Damn it!" he clicked in annoyance. "I Missed!" He was really starting to develop a real dislike towards these flying rats.

As he hauled himself back onto the pole, he saw her shaking hands with a speckle-faced male ooman with hair the colour of fire. He seemed to be one of status, and Scar already found his face annoying. All that fiery hair was very distracting. It almost seemed to glow in the sunlight. He had half a mind to throw a shuriken and shave it all off.

He turned his attention back to Lex, but could sense something was wrong. Although she seemed to have managed to disguise her feelings from the male, one thermal scan told him she was worried. Not just worried. She was scarred.

She had sensed his presence, but his instincts told him he was not the cause. There was something inside that building that was causing her distress, and the male ooman was leading her inside.

Scar growled under his breath. He gave a great leap and landed on the paving on the other side of the road where the vehicle had been parked. He knew he couldn't go inside. He'd have to spy in from the outside. Running up the steps as quickly and quietly as he could, he switched to thermal vision. Lex's signature was more prominent than the other ooman's, partially because of her anxiety was raising her body's temperature, but mainly because of the temperature of the building she'd entered was below freezing. How peculiar…

Scar scaled a column outside the building's entrance and stared down through the roof tiles at the signatures displayed on his visors. They were more difficult to make out, but at least he could avoid the oomans from bumping into him from up here. He followed Lex's signature as she and the other oomans approached an elevator. Scar readied himself to climb to the next level when he realised, to his horror, that the signatures were growing fainter and fainter. The elevator was taking Lex below ground.

"Damn it!" he cursed angrily. He couldn't follow her anymore.

She was on her own.

Worst of all, he had to wait for her to return- he wasn't prepared to let her out of his sight for one minute with Shadow lurking around.

Scar hated waiting, almost as much as he hated New York's local wildlife.

Speaking of which… he put his hand to his shoulder and wrinkled his mandibles in disgust. He wiped his hand on the roof tiles and looked up to see a pigeon cooing innocently above him on a pole.

"That's it birdie, you're fucking dead!" Scar leapt at the pigeon, his wrist blades extended.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoa, what a crappy ending for scar- literally- but a great ending for us readers!

Scar has finally found Lex, Lex is about to find out what lurks beneath the floors of Redway industries, and we have all established Scar's hatred of birds.

I promise you, Kyubi123, they WILL run into each other soon enough.

I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed my work so far.

Hope you're enjoying it as much as I did writing it!

If you haven't reviewed or added to story alert yet, please do!

By the way, I would appreciate it if readers could review each chapter as they come out- I want to make sure you all still like what you're reading.

Special thanks to IluthraDanar for all your support on my story so far!

Plot suggestions and feedback graciously accepted.

Thanks again for reading!

Good Hunting,

SteelPredator


	6. Realised Fears

"I must sincerely apologize for the temperature, Miss Woods, but I'm afraid it's a necessary precaution to keep these artefacts in perfect condition."

Lex shivered. She was freezing cold and had to grip both her arms to try and conserve as much of her body heat as possible. As the elevator descended, her breath rose in a mist before her and she could have sworn that she could see the sparkle of frost on the metal walls. Redway and their escort didn't seem to be effected quite as badly as she was, but, then again, she was only wearing a tank top and jeans, while they were donning thick-looking suits. Kayne, and the two guards who were escorting them were armed, and Lex had the suspicion that Redway had managed to buy himself a small private army.

She decided that getting on Redway's bad side was a not good idea. She tried to lighten the mood a little.

"I understand, Mr Redway." She replied. "I just can't help wondering why these finds would be kept underground while you've got an entire skyscraper."

Lex secretly worried that she'd sounded rude. Thankfully, Redway chuckled.

"Well, I must be honest with you, Miss Woods; it's more for show really. It's mainly offices in the main building. I believe it's much safer to keep my little treasures safely out of the prying eyes of a untrustworthy cleaner who might spill the beans to the press.

"The rest of my collection is stored down here as well, you know. I'm a bit of a collector myself. And, with all the millions of dollars it's worth, I think it's best to keep it all safely under lock and key."

"Wise decision," Lex replied, trying to keep the conversation friendly. "I just hope your staff don't mind the cold."

Redway chuckled. "Well, Miss Woods, this is just temporary until we find a better way to keep these finds preserved. Of course, all the other pieces in my collection are kept separate, several floors above us now, in conditions best suited to the environments they were originally found in so the materials won't decay and tarnish. We don't want them falling apart on us, now, do we?"

He smiled smugly, chuckling at his own wit. Lex forced a smile. Something told her this was going to be a very long day.

Finally, the elevator came to a standstill. The doors opened and Lex felt her teeth chatter and Goosebumps rise on her arms. The elevator was mild compared to this. It was like walking straight back into the Antarctic. Air vents spewed out silvery, glittering air in what felt to her like a weak blizzard. Great stalagmites and stalactites of ice the width of a man's arm hung from the ceiling and floor, and the walls seemed to be made more of ice than concrete. Lex had the sudden, sickening feeling that she was back in the pyramid, only much, much colder. She tried to imagine that she was just going into one of the limestone caves she used to explore every summer with her father when she was little, only that someone had turned the air conditioning down way too low.

Something icy cold landed in her hair. She reached up to touch it, and realised, to her great surprise that it was water. She looked up. More and more small droplets were forming on the ceiling, one dripping down and onto her nose. The ice was… melting?

She looked to Redway, who grinned at the puzzled look on her face.

"The finds in question were encased in ice when they were excavated, Miss Woods. My scientists have been working flat out for the past fortnight to defrost them, while trying to keep the artefacts in as stable as possible. The temperature will improve the closer we get to vault."

Lex nodded, but shivered all the same. It wasn't the cold. It was her nerves. If these _artefacts, _as Redway called them, had survived encased in the Antarctic ice, could something _organic_ survived, as well? She just kept telling herself that the creatures she'd encountered in Antarctica had been reptilian, or at least reptilian-like, so that they had to be cold blooded and couldn't have survived being kept in deep freeze for 5 years. She kept trying to ignore the part of her mind that was telling her these things had survived in a stone pyramid, 2000 feet below the surface of Antarctica, and that other cold blooded creatures could survive and even thrive in icy waters. She just prayed that she wasn't just kidding herself.

As they pressed on through the corridors, the ice seemed to subside more and more, while water splashed and lapped at her shoes more and more. A gentle sucking sound told her that the water was draining away into the sewers, but the puddles seemed to get bigger and bigger as they marched through the passage. Lex was just wondering how much further they had to go, when they came to a sudden halt. A great metal door stood before them, warning stripes surrounding outlining it against the wall. The mechanism that Lex presumed opened and closed the door was as big and solid as the door itself, and looked more like a high-security bank vault than anything else. Whatever could need such heavy protection?

Or such heavy containment?

Lex didn't realise how much she was shaking until Kayne stepped into her field of vision.

"Are you okay, Miss Woods?"

"Fine," she lied. "Just excited to see what's behind those doors."

"Are you sure?"

Kayne didn't sound convinced. He fixed her with a piercing stare that Lex had the sudden, alarming feeling that he could read her thoughts. A loud cough made them turn away from each other to face Redway, who had been typing a combination into the digital lock.

"Well, Miss Woods, come and see my little beauties. "

Lex nodded, trying to hide her nerves. Already, the back of her neck was prickling. She waited with baited breath while the mechanism began to hum and whir. An orange warning light flashed above the door, casting eerie pale glow which reflected off the waterlogged floor. There was a click, and the door opened ajar. Lex could feel Goosebumps spreading all up her arms and legs as the group approached the door.

The door seemed to fold back in on itself into the room, which was as dark as coal. As they stepped inside, lights flickered on, triggered by their movements, Lex could see a silvery mist floating a few feet off the floor. As the mist cleared, she could make out a podium, atop of which were half a dozen glass cases. The flickering light and mist made their contents difficult to see, but their silhouettes were unnervingly familiar; oval in shape, dark against the mist.

Finally, the lights above the cases flickered on.

Lex felt her blood run as cold as the ice that hung from the corridor's ceilings and walls. She felt her heart stop and her eyes widen in terror. She shrank backwards towards the door, but it had closed behind her. She sank against the door, staring at the cases, horrible images flashing across her mind. The black, domed head with ghosts of what may have been eyes staring blindly at her. Those horribly disfigured mouths full of razor sharp teeth and a second mouth which snapped viciously at you from within the murky depths of the creature's maw. The vile spider-crab creatures that clung to your face and planted their seed inside you, only to have it burst out of your chest mere hours later.

She stared back at the cases in silent terror, the eggs sitting motionless within the glass.


	7. A New Threat

Lex could hear voices, but not a single word registered in her mind, which seemed to shut everything out. Everything except the eggs sitting their cases, the vivid images of her horrifying previous ordeal with these creatures, and the sheer, uncontrollable fear that gripped her mind like the talons of some great bird and refused to release her.

She didn't know how long she stood flat against the wall, her eyes wide with terror and the rest of the party staring at her. Only when Kayne stepped in front of her again did she actually register their presence.

"Miss Woods?"

Without thinking, Lex delivered a sharp kick to Kayne's stomach, winding him. Before the others could react, Lex snatched up his gun off the floor and pointed it directly at the centre case. The two guards stared in shock for a moment, before training their guns on her. Lex didn't even notice them. All she could see were the eggs. She fired one at the case, and was about to shoot again when the two guards held their gun shafts to her neck. She slowly began to return to reality, realising her situation. Redway broke the silence.

"What the hell has gotten into you, Miss Woods?"

"I'm trying to save the lives of every fucking person in this fucking room!" Lex cried in return, unable to stop her voice from betraying her fear. Everyone in the room stared at her.

"Miss Woods, lower the weapon or I will have no choice but to order my men to shoot you dead on the spot." Redway spoke calmly, a slight element of glee in his voice.

Kayne looked up at Lex, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and anger; which, in turn, slowly melted into concern when the gun fell to the floor with a great clash of metal on stone, and Lex sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Kayne knelt next to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Come on, Miss Woods, its okay."

"It's anything but okay."

"I understand that this is upsetting for you-"

"Like hell, you do!"

Lex didn't move. She just slumped on the floor, shaking all over. Kayne took her chin in his hand, and gently brought her to face him. He could see she had been crying. Tears were still running down her face, making her makeup run and smudge. Only now he really noticed the mark on her cheek. She wrenched away.

"If you value your lives, you need to destroy those things. Now."

"Why?"

Redway had knelt down to Lex's level. Lex's face immediately hardened. She wasn't prepared to show weakness in front of him.

"You've seen these things before, haven't you, Miss Woods?"

"No, you don't say." Lex replied with a mixture of sarcasm and anger, her voice breaking.

"What exactly are they?"

There was a very long silence.

"It wasn't an oil spill that killed your colleagues, was it Miss Woods?" Redway asked, a mixture of accusation and interest in his voice.

There was another long pause. Redway stood, bored with waiting, scowling at the woman kneeling on the floor.

Kayne rose as well, but held out his hand to Lex.

"Come on, Miss Woods."

Lex stared up at his hand for a moment, but didn't take it. She got to her feet and dusted herself off without looking at anyone. She looked at the eggs, then to Redway.

"Bullet-proof glass?"

"Naturally."

"It won't be much good when these things hatch."

Lex walked back to the door and leaned against it, her eyes closed and her arms crossed across her chest.

Another all-too-familiar silence descended.

"Hatch? What do you mean, hatch?"

The voice was unfamiliar, telling Lex that it was one of the two guards who'd been their escort. There was a quaver in his voice that told her only too well that he was getting nervous. So he should be.

"They're eggs." She said simply, keeping her eyes closed and not moving an inch. "Alien eggs. You're right, Redway, it was no accident. The creatures that laid those killed my friends." She turned her head to indicate the eggs in their cases.

"How?"

Lex turned to Redway, finally opening her eyes to look directly into his. There was something suspicious about him. He didn't seem appalled or bothered in any way, shape or form. He just stared at her with keen interest. Like a child being told how chocolate is made. She continued, never taking her eyes off him.

"When the egg hatches, it releases a parasite which finds a host then latches onto its face."

The more squeamish of the two guards whimpered a little. Lex ignored him and continued.

"After a few hours, it falls off and dies. But the real creature's inside."

"Inside? Inside what?" This time it was Kayne.

"The host the thing attached to ."

The guard squirmed a little, interrupting Redway's next question: "What does it look like?"

Lex looked at Redway with growing suspicion. "A nightmare." She answered simply.

Again, Redway seemed more amused that concerned by her little lecture. She decided to really push it.

"The creature incubates inside the host's chest, probably somewhere in the lungs, until fully developed." She continued, pausing for a moment as she watched the others narrow their eyes in wonder. "It then bursts out of the host's chest, pushing ribs, internal organs, everything outwards, killing the host."

This time, the guard bent double, turning a violent shade of green. Nobody paid him much attention. Redway simply looked at Lex with growing interest. Lex looked him straight back in the eye and continued:

"These creatures mature and grow faster than any other animal I've seen. They're the size of a man within the space of a few hours, and are extremely deadly and aggressive. You're lucky if they kill you. If they don't, they'll take you back to the nest and turn you into a new host." She shivered, remembering Sebastian begging her to end his life, strung up in a cocoon, a bloody lump pushing its way through under his shirt.

This time, the guard leant against the wall, his knees trembling.

"Intriguing… "

Lex turned back to Redway. Now she was starting to worry.

"Thank you, Miss Woods, that's all I needed to know." He turned back to admire the eggs. There was barely a crack in the glass where Lex had fired.

"Redway, I'm telling you, you need to destroy those things!"

"Thank you, Miss Woods, that will be all."

Redway never took his eyes of the eggs. He had his back to Lex so she couldn't see his face. That was the most worrying of all. Plus, she wasn't used to being ignored.

"Redway, I'm serious, if a single one of those things get loose, they'll spread like wildfire and butcher this entire city within a matter of days! Trust me! I've seen it all before! For God's sake-"

"That will be all, Miss Woods." Redway had raised his voice, but it was still unreadable. "Kayne, Smith, escort Miss Woods out. Howard, stay with me"

Lex couldn't believe it. Smith took hold of her right arm and began to march her from the room. When she resisted, he gave a forceful yank, nearly making Lex fall to the floor. Kayne shot her an apologetic look, which she ignored. She turned to shout at Redway:

"Redway! You bastard! If you don't get rid of them now you're putting the whole world at risk!

I'm warning you, Redway, this isn't over!"

As Lex was dragged down the corridor, she heard Redway call half-heartedly back at her.

"Actually, Miss Woods, when people say that, it usually is."

As the elevator lift doors closed behind them with a short "d_ing!"_ Redway turned back to the still squeamish-looking guard.

"D-do you think she meant it, sir?"

Redway didn't answer; he just walked up to Howard and looked him right in the eye.

"Miss Woods is nothing more than a nuisance that needs to be… dealt with. We've got what we need. Get the Yates brothers to follow the car, then stand guard here. I can't risk leaving these things unguarded for five minutes."

"Y-yes sir, but-"

"_But_ what, Howard?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Good."

With that, Redway left the room.

Howard shivered and glanced back at the eggs behind him. He shivered, and tried not to think about it and concentrate on the matter at hand. Then again, his next task didn't do much to settle his stomach, either.

He took his cell phone out of his pocket, and began to dial the number. He held the receiver to his ear just as the centre egg, the same one Lex had shot at earlier, twitched. The top curled backwards like a pair of lips, leaving an opening about the size of a grapefruit. Howard still didn't notice when eight bony, finger like legs began wriggled frantically at the opening.

He was just hanging up when he heard the click of the door mechanism. Locking.

-------------

By now, Scar was getting bored. The pigeon's skull was now mounted with all the rest on the chain around his neck. It had been an easy kill, but a satisfying one. It also seemed to keep the rest of the feathered vermin away from him, making it all the sweeter.

Scar twirled the skull absent-mindedly in his claws. He had been waiting on the roof for hours and he was now feeling stiff and a little sore. Lex still hadn't left the building and darkness was starting to fall. He see the moon rising against the darkening sky.

Another thing that was getting on his nerves was the scent coming from the building. It was… strange. Some odours were familiar, while a lot of them remained alien to him. And none of them were ooman. It was coming from below ground, where Lex had gone with the irritating fire-haired ooman. Scar was still pondering the problem when he heard the doors open. He glanced down, expecting to see just another ooman leaving the building, when he caught her scent. Lex!

He stared down from the rood. Two ooman males, who he recognised from earlier today, were escorting her back to the ooman transport. One of them was dragging her forcefully by the arm, and was obviously causing her pain. Scar growled angrily at the ooman.

He'd pay for that.

He watched them enter the transport, and start off down the road.

Scar was just about to set off in pursuit, when he noticed a trio of shifty-looking oomans close by in an alley way. He watched one of them replace a portable communication device back into his pocket, then speak to the other two, pointing after the vehicle had just seen Lex depart in. They all entered their vehicle, and drove stealthily away in pursuit.

Scar was starting to worry. He followed this second transport with his eyes, scanning it with thermal. One look told him what he'd been dreading- they were all heavily armed.

Scar wasted no time in jumping off his perch before giving chase, leaping from roof to roof as fast as he could, not caring about where his feet impacted or how loud his footsteps were. He didn't have time to be careful.

Lex was in trouble.

Deep Trouble.

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WHOA… DRAMATIC CLIFF HANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, moving on. (Sorry about the bad language)

I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, favourited, and, most importantly, enjoyed the story so far.

Now, Kyuubi123, I promise you'll get your reunion in the next couple of chapters, so stop pouting!

Believe me, it's the chapter I'm most looking forward to writing!

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I would also like to point out that I'm going away to Wales for a week from this Saturday, so I'm gonna try and get as much as I can done on SCH before then. After I get back, I'll resume writing. Hopefully I'll feel better after that.

Sick days during summer are just not right!

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Good hunting,

SteelPredator


	8. Unwelcome Guests

The silence was deafening on the journey home, but Lex just ignored it. She was buried in her own thoughts. She still had no idea what the hell was going on with Redway, but she didn't trust him for one second. One thing was clear to her- he wasn't going to destroy the eggs. Surely the idiot wasn't going to-

Lex shivered at the thought. He wouldn't! Would he?

A slight poke of cold metal snapped her out of her chain of thought. It was the guard, Smith, poking her with the barrel of the gun. Kayne was holding the door open for her. She hadn't even realised that the car had stopped.

"Here we are, Miss Woods." Kayne's voice was different. It wasn't quite as friendly as before.

"Thanks for the ride," Lex replied. She climbed out of the car and Kayne closed the door behind her. She was just about to go back into the apartment building, when Kayne spoke again, cutting her short.

"Miss Woods?"

Lex didn't answer. She just turned to face him, fixing him with a piercing look. Even in the dark of the New York night, she could see his usually red face was pale as chalk.

"Those things… you meant it, didn't you?"

Lex just fixed him with steely eyes. There was a very long pause.

"Kayne, do you have family in New York?"

"Yeah- my wife Sophie and my beautiful little girl, Emily. We'll have another new arrival in a few months time."

"Congratulations."

A ghost of a smile flickered across Kayne's face, which seemed to get a little of its original colour back. Lex didn't return it.

"Get them out of here. Tonight."

"But-"

"If you value your and their lives, get them as far away from New York as they possibly can. If Redway's dumb enough to let those things hatch, New York will be massacred in a matter of days. I wasn't kidding about anything I said in that vault, Kayne."

"Couldn't we just… you know… call the cops?"

Lex laughed bitterly. "Like they'd believe a word of it. Call them if you want to, but it'll be a waste of your breath. Take it to court- it'll be too late, anyway. And if you drag me into it, we'll be in even deeper shit than we are already. After what happened in Antarctica, the government doesn't exactly trust me. Redway seems to be the kind of bastard who can weasel his way out of anything."

There was a very long pause.

"Go home to your family, Kayne. Pack your bags and leave as soon as you can. Tell your friends and other relatives to do the same. Now, if you'll excuse me."

She opened the door.

"Wait! What are you gonna do?"

Lex turned back to Kayne. In the light of the door way, the mark on her cheek seemed to flash angrily.

"I'm gonna do the right thing."

She walked through the door, and closed it with a snap.

Kayne stood rooted on the spot for a few minutes, staring at where Lex had stood. Only a sharp tap on the glass from Smith brought him back to his senses. He climbed into the driver's seat, and started the engine.

"Nutter." Smith sniffed from the back seat. "Come on, Kayne, you don't think she was being serious, do you?"

Kayne didn't answer. He just drove. If Smith had ever been to Floor 0, he would have understood. Perfectly.

He didn't notice the black Mercedes pull up in the very spot where he'd parked, or the shadow crouched on the roof of the hotel on the opposite side of the street.

-------------

Lex didn't even notice when she stubbed her toe for the thirteenth time as she almost flew up the stairs and burst into her apartment. She slammed the door behind her, and made a beeline for her bedroom. She pulled the combi stick out from under mattress and clicked the almost hidden button. The blades extended, making the weapon three times bigger and three times as deadlier in half a second. She smiled, confident that it still worked. She squeezed the shaft lightly, and the blades retracted, returning to normal size with a metallic ring.

She knew what she was going to do. Break into Redway's building, get to the vault, and send the eggs back to hell from whence they came. And kick the arse of anybody who gets in her way, hopefully Redway's included.

She was in too much of a wild panic to think clearly. She threw draws open at random, in a desperate hunt for a flashlight. She only stopped when there was a loud bang and the sound of groaning wood coming from the front door.

Lex froze, listening.

The bang came again, this time accompanied by a loud creak.

She kept both her hands firmly on the combi stick, holding it up in a defensive stance, trying to remember how to use it. She could vaguely remember Scar using it in the pyramid, but that had been five years ago and she had been in such a rush fighting the serpents that she hadn't exactly taken time out to observe.

This time, she heard wood splitting.

Lex stood up straight, staring at the door. She hadn't escaped death multiple times five years ago to be brought down by a few punks. She walked boldly into the living room, the combi stick behind her back. The warrior mark on her cheek seemed to burn.

There was a fourth and final _bang_ and the door gave way, swinging limply, held up by only one hinge. Three men entered the room. They were dressed all over in black, and wore dark glasses to hide their eyes. They all appeared to be similar in age, all with pale skin that made their faces look almost ghostly against their black suits. All three carried machine guns in their hands.

"You know, a simple knock on the door would have been enough." Lex spoke coolly, trying not to show her unwelcome guests any sign of weakness or fear.

To her surprise, the tallest of the three, who appeared to be the leader, chuckled.

"Very funny, Miss Woods, very funny. The boss said you had spunk."

Boss? Lex had a feeling that these were not just everyday thugs that suddenly burst into the room at inconvenient moment and hold you at gunpoint. It didn't take a genius to work out they were assassins.

"Redway sent you, didn't he?" she said calmly, trying to ignore the voice screaming in her head telling her to run.

The leader smirked. "Very clever, Miss Woods. I don't suppose it would hurt to tell you now, would it, boys?"

The other two chuckled, keeping their guns trained on Lex.

"Don't see how it would, Frankie." Said the shortest of the three. "Miss Woods ain't gonna be here much longer, is she?"

The other two laughed.

Lex ignored their mocking grins, keeping her eyes fixed on the leader, Frankie, the squirt had called him.

"You can't really be called assassins if you bash the door down to get to me." She retorted. She knew it wasn't the wisest move to antagonize people threatening to kill you, but she didn't care. She couldn't believe that after going through all that strife, pain and suffering, she was about to be picked off by a few bastards who looked like they'd just walked out of _Men In Black_. "This is an apartment building. There are other people who live here, you know. Breaking wood and gunshots don't exactly go unmissed by the neighbours, do they?"

"Already took care of 'em on our way up." Piped up the third, who was about a head shorter than Frankie. "Didn't take long. Shame really- didn't seem necessary. But orders are orders."

Lex was stunned.

"You killed them? You killed off everyone in the building just to get to me?"

"Well, well, you are a perceptive one, aren't you, Miss Woods?" Frankie smiled, showing a toothy grin. "No, I'm afraid, just drugged." He added, noticing the look of revulsion on the woman's face. "Would have been a waste of good ammunition; and besides, the boss doesn't like to get his hands dirty."

Lex took a step backwards, sickened. As she did, the men advanced on her.

"That's a bit ironic, seeing that he's sent a trio of assassins to murder me."

"We do our work well, Miss Woods." Frankie said suavely. The three of them moved forwards, backing Lex further backwards towards the balcony. "With the right props, say, a few liquor bottles or a bag or two of crack, falling from a seven story building will look nothing more than a tragic accident to the cops."

Lex suddenly realised their intentions. This whole thing had been a ruse. Just to get her into exactly the right spot.

But she wasn't going down without a fight.

She raised the combi stick and held it before her defensively. The three assassins took one look at the weapon, and burst out laughing.

"What's that supposed to be?" bawled Frankie, almost bent double with laughter. "An ancient Egyptian lightsabre?"

"Not exactly."

Lex pushed the button, and the blades were released. The three brothers stared at it for a moment, before training their guns on her again. Lex didn't even seem to notice them. Blood was pounding in her ears, the mark on her cheek burning. Scar had marked her as a warrior, and a warrior she was. She wasn't going to let these three bastards win.

Without thinking, she swung the combi stick like a sword, slicing down through the air before the brothers even had time to react. She drew it back, prepared for more. The brothers glanced at each other. Nothing seemed to have happened.

Then the squirt let out a faint whimper, then a cry of pain. He fell to the floor, clutching his right arm while cursing and screaming. When the other two turned to look at him, Lex saw blood dribbling onto the carpet, and then something even more horrible.

The man's gun lay on the carpet, the finger on the trigger, but the hand was barely gripping the handle. Lex was surprised it was gripping anything at all.

It had come clean off.

The remaining two turned back to Lex, a mixture of shock and rage on their faces.

"You'll pay for that, bitch!" the second brother yelled. There was such venom in his voice that Lex was half expecting him to lunge out and bite her. But that was soon pushed aside as he began firing at her, screaming at her in blind fury.

Lex knew, somehow, what to do. Her hand seemed to be acting by its own accord as it held the staff in front of her face and began twirling it like a parasol, so fast that the blades were a steely grey blur, deflecting the bullets off at odd angles, one of them hitting her attacker in the foot. As he fell to the ground, clutching his injured foot and screaming in pain, Lex lowered the weapon.

She was surprised that she'd managed to even wield the weapon, let alone that well. Adrenalin was pumping through her blood, bringing her entire body to life. She didn't notice the ache in her arm or the sting where a bullet had clipped her ankle. She just held the staff out in front of her, making a hand gesture at Frankie which said only too clearly: "Bring it on!"

Frankie was speechless. He didn't even see Lex lowering the weapon. He'd never seen his brothers get so much as a scratch on the job before, let alone getting their arses kicked by a woman armed with a weapon that belonged in a museum. Only when she presented her challenge to him that he snapped back to reality, charging wildly at her, anger boiling in his blood. As the woman held her weapon ready to intercept him, he grabbed a chair, and threw it as hard as he could at her.

Lex recoiled slightly, but stood her ground, using the combi stick to block the attack. She instinctively closed her eyes on impact, as dust and splintered wood flew everywhere. She opened her eyes again just as a powerful kick was delivered to her gut, winding her and sending her flying backwards, smashing through the glass that separated the balcony from the apartment. Her eyes widened in shock as she realised what was happening.

She hit the wooden fencing, and her momentum carried her straight over it.


	9. Knight in Shining Armour

Lex was falling. She'd lost her grip on the combi stick when she'd made impact with the barrier, and had left it behind on the balcony. She was still winded, and didn't have enough breath in her body to scream. This was the end. She just knew it. She closed her eyes as the sidewalk rushed up to greet, readying herself for impact.

But it never came.

She felt something grab her round the waist. Her direction was changing.

She was going upwards.

Lex silently feared that she'd hit the pavement earlier than she realised. A sudden buckle told her she, or whatever had caught her had made impact with something. She forced her eyes open, wide and scared looking around.

She hadn't hit the ground. She was several stories above it. But, how?

She looked around, nervously. She was dangling from one of the lower balconies, over the sidewalk which had almost taken her life. She couldn't see anything supporting her. In fact she couldn't see anything, not even her own arm. She must be dead. How else could she be… invisible? She frowned as a suspicion wandered into her mind.

She couldn't see anything, but she could definitely feel something. A burly, muscular arm was wrapped around her waist, tight enough to stop her falling, but gentle enough not to cause her any discomfort. She was pressed what felt like metal plating, but it wasn't the balcony fencing. It was more like… armour; armour covering a broad, muscled chest.

There was warmth as well. It was a strange, comforting warmth that seemed to radiate from everywhere around her. She may be dangling precariously from the side of a building, but she couldn't help but feel… safe.

She looked around. She couldn't see him, but her stare seemed to lock onto something just above her. She couldn't tell what it was, but it had a strange, familiar feeling to it. There was a vague outline which showed up in the light from the apartment they were dangling from, showing her vaguely where her arm was, but it was transparent and distorted, like a heat haze on a road in mid summer. The second outline was more humanoid, and Lex could have sworn she could see something that resembled eyes suddenly flash yellow against the inky black.

She felt her heart skip a beat.

It couldn't be… could it?

She was suddenly brought back to reality as he gave another leap, jostling her slightly as they made contact with balcony after balcony, climbing steadily upwards to the one she'd fallen from.

-------------

Scar was torn between relief, joy and anger- relief that Lex was not dead, joy that she had not been harmed, and sheer uncontrollable anger directed towards the ooman who had attempted to take her life. It had been a dirty trick.

But, as it was, she was unscathed. Shaken, but not hurt. He just thanked the gods that he had managed to catch her. He also thanked his upgraded cloaking system which had allowed Lex into the distortion field with him. If an ooman were to look out the window, and see a strange female floating, unsupported, they would probably faint with shock.

She couldn't see him, but he could see her perfectly thanks to his mask. As he stared down at her, and, despite her pale, scared face, he couldn't help but admire her even more. She had stood her ground when outnumbered 3 to 1. She had successfully fought back and injured two of her attackers without so much as a scratch. Not to mention she had utilised one of the hardest to master yautja weapons in existence (how she had got it was a mystery to him) with no training, yet with skill that rivalled that of a true expert (of course, he wasn't going to tell her that!), not to mention her creativity. He had never seen a combi stick used to deflect ballistic projectiles before.

He smiled from behind his mask when he saw her look straight into his eyes. She couldn't see him, thanks to the cloaking, but it felt as if she could see straight into his very soul.

It was very short lived. Anger burned behind his eyes. Those oomans would pay. Dearly.

He leapt from platform to platform in leaps and bound, with some difficulty since he had only one hand free, to reach her level. The ooman who had forced her over the edge had taken his visors off, looking at down at where Lex should have hit the pavement, a confused and bewildered stare in his eyes.

He felt Lex tense a little as they climbed higher still. He reached up to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. She would be able to relax soon enough.

As soon as they reached her Balcony, Scar could see the taller, apparently leading ooman properly. He was still armed, but the primitive weapon would do him little good against this unseen assailant.

Scar grabbed hold of the curtain rail, ignoring the slight groaning of the metal, and swung back, gathering momentum before landing a well aimed kick on the ooman's face. The ooman fell backwards with a cry of surprise and pain, and a rather satisfying crunch. Blood was streaming from his nose as he fell to the floor. The other, injured oomans looked up in surprise, shocked to see their comrade knocked out on the floor.

They quickly got over it, levelling their weapons at the entrance their leader had just fallen from. There was terror in their eyes, and tears of pain. Scar grinned under his mask. This would be almost too easy.

Scar leisurely strolled past the terrified ooman attackers, and into a separate chamber where a large bed lay. He gently set Lex down in a small compartment inside the wall that appeared to be used for storing ooman clothing, out of sight and out of reach of the men. He silently cursed the design. The door was made of strips of wood which was small gaps between them, so it was possible that the men may see her, but he could see no better options. He gently placed his hand over her mouth, signalling her to be silent. He didn't no whether it would get the message across, since she couldn't see him, but she seemed to understand. She nodded in reply.

More than a little reluctantly, he released her, severing the connection between them and returning her to full visibility. He quickly but silently shut the door, shielding her from all but the best trained eyes, before returning to the main chamber.

Scar noticed Lex's combi stick lying in the entrance and picked it up, ready for battle. He smirked. It seemed fitting that the weapon that started the battle would also be the one to end it.

The oomans stared in shock as the staff rose off the ground to eye level, only to disappear with a slight fizzle of electricity as it connected with his cloaking system. They didn't hesitate this time, firing wildly at the spot where the weapon had vanished.

Scar, of course had seen the attack coming and had spared no time in leaping to the other side of the room, avoiding the shower of bullets. He slowly circled his prey, releasing the blades on the combi stick.

"Damn it!"

The sound of slicing metal had alerted the oomans, who fired another round of shots in his direction. Again, Scar leapt gracefully out of the way, this time into an area of the chamber where oomans appeared to store and prepare their food. He backed up, scanning the entire room. The leading ooman was coming to, looking around and calling out to his comrades. They babbled about the weapon vanishing and the scrape of metal. This was becoming amusing. He stepped back a little, ready to take a running leap at the oomans.

Suddenly, Scar heard the sickening sound of something breaking. He turned to see that the bladed edge of the combi stick had struck a glass container on the work surface. The glass was in pieces, and a strange-smelling, high-caffeine liquid was spilling over everything.

Including his wrist device.

Suddenly, the whole cloaking system began sparking and crackling wildly. His entire form faded into existence, covered in electric-blue sparks. The oomans stared at him, their weapons trained in his direction.

"Fuck…"

-------------

Lex was just as surprised to see a yautja hunter appear out nowhere as the assassins were. She had suspected her saviour to be a hunter (how else would you explain the invisibility?), but it was still a shock when the hunter emerged out of nothing in her kitchen, breaking the coffee machine in the process.

The sight of the hunter both excited and terrified her; vivid images popping into her mind as she saw the whole thing again- being hunted through the labyrinth of tunnels, facing death in a ninja-esque, unforgiving metal mask. She pushed them out of her mind, reminding herself that this hunter had just saved her life. He could have just as easily left her to fall to her demise, yet he had gone out of his way to save her.

No hunter had ever shown her even the slightest spark of compassion except Scar. And Scar had died right in front of her eyes. What made this hunter so different?

She eyed him, closely. There was something oddly familiar about this hunter. Tall, broad shouldered, heavily muscled bodies and those strange dreadlocks seemed to be as common among their kind as hair, noses and eyes were among humans. And yet, Lex could have sworn she'd seen him before…

-------------

The oomans were getting over their shock, and Scar knew he needed to act fast. He quickly unsheathed a shuriken and sent it flying at his attackers, the blades slicing clean through the barrel of the nearest ooman's weapon as easily as if it had been made of paper.

Scar barely had time to catch the returning disk before another shower of bullets came flying at him. His armour deflected most of the bullets, but a couple caught the unprotected skin on his arm and buried themselves in his flesh. Growling angrily, Scar ducked down behind the counter to avoid the next round. He cursed as he tried to dig the bullets out of his arm with his talons, luminous blood spilling over the tiles and coating his fingers. Now he was angry. He could hardly do anything.

So this is what it felt like to be helpless. To be the hunted.

If only his wrist device would work!

Scar could hear the two oomans approaching him. At close range, they would be in a position to kill, and he was stuck with a wounded arm. He was defenceless. Unless…

Suddenly, he heard the clang of metal on stone, and hurried footsteps in retreat. One of the oomans had thrown something at him. He felt under the table and took hold of it, ignoring the cloud of dust that came with it as he drew it out. He was puzzled. It was rounded in shape, like a hard meat egg, only much smaller and made of metal and plastic.

He was just about to scan it when he heard a voice cry from the next chamber: "IT'S A BOMB!"

It was Lex, and she'd just given herself away.

Scar gulped.

-------------

Lex silently feared a reaction from the brothers, but she couldn't worry about their response immediately. She was just prayed that the hunter had heard her cry.

Suddenly, as if in answer to her thoughts, there was a loud _bang_ from the opposite room, and the whole apartment seemed to shake.

A deafening silence followed

Lex hardly dared to breathe, a tear sliding down her cheek. It was a mixture of fear and sadness. That was the second hunter to die for her. Although his identity still remained a mystery, it felt like losing Scar all over again.

She suddenly froze, as a familiar face appeared in the doorway. It was Frankie.

"Come out; come out where ever you are, Miss Woods."

Frankie's voice gave Lex the creeps. It was child-like and had a slight sing-song quality to it, reminding her of a psychotic killer in a horror film she'd once watched during college. There was a wild, wide look in his eyes, and dried blood covered his face. Lex secretly wondered how hard the hunter had kicked him.

"Your little ninja friend's not here to save you this time, Miss Woods."

Frankie was approaching the closet. Lex froze, watching the knife in the assassin's hand. He had just put a hand to the latch when a deep, husky, booming voice rang out through the whole apartment: "Don't count on it, ooman!"

Then the living room exploded.

-------------

Scar covered his head as he sheltered behind the work surface as pieces of debris flew everywhere. He clutched at his wrist device's, grinning from mandible to mandible. The recorded explosion had sounded just as real as a genuine one.

Of course, his little act had only meant to buy him enough time to customise the weapon with a few features of his own, but when he heard that ooman threatening Lex, that had pushed him over the edge. Scar smiled his cannibalised self-destruct device.

"Thank you, second setting as standard."

He rose and surveyed the room. The ooman slang term that describes a messy room as a bomb site would never have been more appropriate. Furniture and fixtures lay in pieces. Parts of the walls had been completely blown away, exposing bear concrete. Wallpaper and carpeting was charred. The entire place was a wreck.

Scar strolled around to inspect further.

Two of the brothers were dead, their guns still in hand, half buried in dislodged concrete.

Scar stepped round them and into the bedroom, not paying them much attention. The third assassin was lying slumped against the closet door where he'd hidden Lex, the wood splintered where his body had made impact. Scar pulled the limp body off of the door, and the man's knife fell with _clang_, stained with blood.

Scar detached the connection wires to remove his mask. The dust was clogging up the filter and making his vision blurry. He shook himself set the mask to the side, then proceeded to open the closet door.

As he grasped the latch, he felt a hand grip his arm. He looked down to the third assassin staring up at him with a mixture of horror, revulsion and hatred on his face. He was still alive, but blood seeped heavily from a bloody hole in his chest. He had fallen on his own knife.

As he turned his face up to face the predator, the ooman spat: "You ugly son of a-"

Scar cut him short with a wrist blade to the neck.

"Bitch." Scar finished, looking down at his prey with a mixture of pity, and disgust. That one didn't even deserve a mercy killing.

-------------

"You didn't need to lock me in the closet, you know. I'm not that helpless"

Lex pushed the door open ajar, catching the hunter's eye. He just growled playfully at her.

Lex smiled. Don't give me that. I know you can speak…"

She trailed off, catching a glimpse of his mask, lying on the bed, and her heart seemed to stop. She would've recognized that mask anywhere; the strange, streamlined design, the flat, almost featureless mouthpiece… the mark of the warrior on the forehead.

"Are you…?"

Lex stared up at the hunter's face. The mark was still plainly visible on his forehead. She took a step back, taking him in.

He was taller than she remembered, roughly 7 ½ feet. His dreadlocks were now past shoulder-length, spilling over his broad shoulders. Aside from that, he hadn't changed at all.

He wore considerably less armour than when they'd first met in Antarctica, almost showing off the hunter's scars like medals of honour, a particularly large one staining his normally tawny skin a dark green on his abdomen. Exactly where…

Unconsciously, she reached out to place a hand on the wound. The predator flinched at her touch, causing Lex to draw back her hand in alarm. She was about to apologize when the hunter raised a hand as well, this time to gently caress the mark on her cheek.

Lex could feel redness start to rise in her cheeks. The predator seemed to notice, as a strange warmth seemed to appear in his deep, amber eyes.

"B-But you're dead."

Lex stepped backwards, forcing the Predator to release her. He seemed almost reluctant. He looked at her with a confused look in his eye, mixed with surprise as he saw a tear roll down her cheek.

"Y-you died, five years ago, Scar."

The Predator cocked his head, and then glanced down at his body.

"Really? Anyone would think I would have stopped walking around."

Lex didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She had to stop herself running forward as she threw her arms around him, surprising the predator.

"I've missed you, Scar." said Lex, tears of joy rolling down her cheeks.

Scar stared down at her for a moment, getting over the slight shock before wrapping his arms gently around her, returning her embrace. "I've missed you, too, Lex."


	10. Reunited

"Since when could you English?"

"Well, five years in quarantine having to regrow nearly an entire lung and recovering from a nasty abdominal wound gave me a lot of free time."

"Regrow a lung?"

"It's a long story."

Scar's voice was gruff and husky, but it was a massive step for someone whose native tongue consisted of a series of clicks and growls. Lex smiled, remembering him having to perform little pantomime acts just to communicate with her in the pyramid.

They both were sat on the bed, or what was left of it anyway. Scar had just managed to get the bullets out of his arm and was patching himself up with a shaving foam-like substance from what appeared to be the yautja equivalent of a first aid kit.

Lex never thought she would ever see the hunter again- let alone _alive_- and she couldn't help but stare at him as he dressed his wounds. Aside from about a foot in extra high, he looked exactly the same as he had five years ago. She watched, deep in thought as the dreadlocks spilled over the hunter's broad shoulders with each movement. Despite his alien appearance, couldn't help but feel _safe_ just being in his presence.

He suddenly noticed her gaze and turned to her.

"What's up?"

Lex could feel her cheeks starting to burn. She just hoped the predator hadn't noticed.

"I was just… thinking."

"About what?"

"Nothing."

Scar seemed to grin under his mandibles. "It was me, wasn't it?"

Lex could definitely feel her face changing colour. She turned away from the predator, staring at the floor.

"I just… well, never thought I'd see you again. After all, I saw the queen impale you through the gut and you, well, _died_ right in front of my eyes."

Scar could tell she was hiding something from him. She felt something that she was reluctant to reveal. He stared at her, his gaze on the woman's left cheek. The warrior mark almost seemed to glow against her dark skin.

"Yautja are fast healers." He replied, simply. "Wouldn't be the first time I've survived something that would kill an ooman in a matter seconds." Scar shivered, the scar on his chest twanging.

"One thing I don't get is why you're here."

Scar silently cursed. This was the question he'd been afraid to answer. He turned to face her, a sudden serious look in his eye. "The Hunt." He replied, him voice solemn. "Another hunter and I are hunting in Manhattan. You must leave or you will be in grave danger."

Lex stared at the hunter. This was all starting to make sense. All of it: Redway's team defrosting the eggs, just happening to coincide with the hunters returning to Earth, Scar just happening to be outside the building when the assassins came after her…

She turned away from him, staring at the floor. She felt almost disappointed. He hadn't come to find her just to save her. All he was interested in was the serpents.

"You're here for them, aren't you?" her voice was quiet and neutral.

Scar stared at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

Lex looked up at him, a sudden look of anger on her face. "Like you don't know. You lot seem to follow those things like moths to a flame."

"Lex, I seriously have no idea what you're talking about."

She stared at him, his eyes full of conviction. He wasn't lying.

"You really don't know?"

"I will as soon as you tell me. There's something bothering you, Lex. I can sense it, and I want to know what it is. It's been bothering you all day, hasn't it?"

"How do you…?"

Lex trailed off, realising the answer. "You've been stalking me, haven't you?"

Scar felt offended. "I've been keeping an eye on you, if that's what you mean." He sniffed. Shadow would cut your throat in a heartbeat and think nothing of it. Even without him you're not safe. I can't afford to let you out of my sight; I take my eye off you for a few minutes, then the next thing I know you're being knocked off a seven story building by a group of lowlife assassins."

Lex stared at the predator. He'd been… guarding her? Why?

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks as a suspicion wandered across her mind. She pushed it aside in case he noticed.

"I can take care of myself, thanks." She retorted, half-heartedly.

"Yeah, you were doing fine 'til you nearly died."

Lex punched the predator playfully on the arm. "Shut up."

Scar smirked. "Some thanks I get for saving your life."

Lex opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again, subdued.

"Yeah, thanks." She said quietly, turning her face back to the floor.

Scar turned back to her, lamenting. He decided to change the subject.

"Well, are you going to tell me what's plaguing your mind, or what?"

Lex turned to face the predator. There was a sudden softness in his eyes that she had never seen before. He was genuinely concerned for her.

There was a very odd sensation in her gut; a strange warmth she had never felt this strongly before. She felt like she could tell the hunter anything, anything at all. There was a strange sort of… connection between them. She couldn't think of a better word for it. After all, it would be good to get a few things off her chest.

She turned away to face the floor, staring at nothing. She took a deep breath.

"Remember the man who greeted me outside that skyscraper today?"

"You mean the one with the really annoying face and even more annoying red hair?"

Lex gave a slight, strangled snigger. "Yeah, he's the one. Well, he took over the company that organised the expedition in Antarctica."

Scar nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"Yeah, well, his team… found something."

Scar looked puzzled. Something had survived the explosion?

"Well, half a dozen of them, actually. And now he's brought them back here, to this city, and had me brought in to take a look at them. I told him to destroy them, and he sent the assassins after me."

"What, Lex? What was it?"

The woman suddenly turned to him, her eyes full of conviction and fear, almost seeming to burn in the darkness. "Eggs, Scar. Redway's got his hands on the serpent's eggs."

Scar could feel excitement begin to make his blood tingle. "Kainde Amedha?" he whispered.

"What?"

"That's what they're called. But most yautja just call them hard meat. Are you sure?"

"Positive." She relied. "And they're defrosted. They could hatch at any minute!"

Scar felt the excitement build in his blood. Now was his chance to return from the hunt with greater, more honourable trophies than he previously anticipated! He would beat Shadow hands down!

But the excitement of the hunt seemed to melt when he noticed Lex's face. She looked pale and frightened. He understood her fear only too well. An image of the hard meat bursting out of his chest flashed across his mind, making his whole body quiver.

He reached up and put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently with his thumb. She seemed to relax. Obviously, it was comforting. She reached up to rest her hand on his, squeezing it gently. She stopped shaking and leaned against his shoulder a little. Scar was surprised. She seemed to find comfort from his touch. He could feel a strange warmth rising in his body, making him shiver a little. It was alien to him, and yet, Scar felt as though he understood.

"I warned him."

Lex's voice was cold and it snapped Scar out of his chain of thought. He stared down at her, a little taken aback.

"I warned him to destroy those things but the bastard just ignored me. It was weird. It was like he just wanted to know what they could do. It sounded like he was going to let them hatch."

Scar gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Even if he does it won't make much difference. The hard meats need hosts to develop, and I doubt anything, not even an ooman, would willingly volunteer."

"They did when you lot were worshipped like Gods." Lex sat up, taking her weight off Scar to look directly into his eyes. Scar missed her warm weight, but nearly shivered at the look she gave him. "Believe me, Scar, there are plenty of humans out there on the streets who would be desperate enough to volunteer. They're homeless and retched, and have nothing left to lose. Redway's a tricky one. He'd offer them food, drugs, who knows what, and they'd line up around the block, not knowing the truth until it is too late. They would simply disappear off the streets and wouldn't be missed. Who knows? He might even use a couple of his staff. I wouldn't put anything past that guy."

Scar was shocked, and a little unnerved by the icy tone in Lex's voice.

"I see."

He got to his feet, and made for the door. Lex followed him with her eyes.

"Where are you going?"

Scar turned to her, brushing dust off the mask's visors and tapping it to get the loose bits out of the filter.

"Like I said, there's a hunt going on, Lex. And I've got bigger, deadlier fish to fry."

He had just reconnected his mask, when he felt Lex's hand grip his arm.

"I'm coming with you."

Scar snorted. "You are not."

Lex fixed the predator with a steely gaze. "Listen, Scar, this is my battle, too. Redway tried to kill me, remember? After today's events I wouldn't mind a taste of revenge."

Scar looked at her, the look of admiration in his eyes hidden by his visors.

"Lex, it's too-"

"I don't care. And don't go all macho-male on me, either. You didn't give me this for nothing, you know." She pointed accusingly at he mark on her cheek.

"Yes, but-"

"Scar," Lex cut the predator short, looking, directly into his amber eyes. "You marked me as a warrior. I've carried it for five years, and I'm still bound to live up to it.

"Besides," she added. "I've got nowhere else to go. You blew up my home, remember? And I can't exactly wait around here for the cops to show up- three dead bodies and a bombed apartment doesn't exactly pass as a good omen."

Scar gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Lex ignored it. "And besides, I know where the eggs are, and I got the combination to the lock. You won't even to be able to get in without me. You need me, Scar. You may not admit it, but I know you do."

Scar stared down at her. She was right, he did need her. In more ways than one. Lex's face bore all the traits he admired in her: courage, spirit, nobility, and sheer determination. He'd been waiting for five years for a chance to hunt with her by his side, and now she was offering willingly. How could he pass up on an opportunity like that?

Slowly, he nodded, and the woman beamed. He couldn't help but grin himself. "Alright, you can come."

She threw her arms around him, making him wince a little.

"Careful- it's still a bit tender."

She released him, her cheeks stained red. "Sorry."

He followed her out into the living room. She made her way to the kitchen while he bent over the bodies of the men. He removed a container of blue liquid from his belt, and poured a little onto the man's body. It fizzed violently, and then the body began to dissolve, collapsing in on itself as the chemicals ate away at it. He noticed Lex staring questioningly over his shoulder, and he held up the vial for her to see.

"Solvent- standard issue." He explained. "Dissolves any organic material, removes every trace of a body and reacts violently with water. Keep out of reach of children"

Lex chuckled. "Handy," she replied. "But gross. Coffee?"

Scar looked sheepishly at the destroyed coffee machine.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it; I've been looking for an excuse to replace that thing for years."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There, Kyuubi123, happy now?

Just another quick thank you for everybody who has read, reviewed, favourited, added to story alert, and most importantly enjoyed SCH.

Also, a quick message:

I'm going on vacation to Wales for a week from Saturday 25th July to August 1st 2009, so SCH will be put on standby until then, but I promise you, I will resume writing as soon as I get back.

Scar: You'd better. We're stuck in a half-destroyed apartment building 'til you get back.

Me: Hey, I promised, didn't I? Look, you two take some time off. You've been in through 8 chapters-

Scar: And a very long prologue.

Me: Alright, and a very long prologue in one week. Go and explore New York for a while, just don't try anything while I'm gone.

Lex: We won't.

Me: Thanks. God, I need a break. My fingers are numb from constant typing!

Anyways, fanboys and fangirls alike enjoy the summer and I'll see you in a week.

Please continue to review chapter by chapter. I want to make sure you still like what you're reading.

Good hunting,

SteelPredator


	11. Gizmos, Gadgets and Gear

Lex was surprised she'd managed to sleep at all after last night's events. She awoke sprawled on her bed, which was still partially smothered in plaster dust and chunks of rubble.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She couldn't remember getting into bed.

The last thing she could remember was sitting down for a moment while Scar had been finishing up the disposal of the bodies.

It didn't take a genius to guess it had been him who had moved her.

She felt a grin creep onto her face as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, shaking plaster from her hair. That had been the first night in five years she'd slept well, without the serpents, or hard meat as Scar had called them, plaguing her dreams. She couldn't understand it.

She'd seen the eggs, alive and well in Redway's vault, and yet, all she could remember was feeling… safe.

Was it something to do with Scar? After all, he had protected her and fought the assassins on her behalf. She had to admit, having the hunter with her was a great comfort. Partly for his protection, and partly for… something Lex couldn't understand.

Suddenly, she heard something which made her snap out of her sleepy state. It was the sound of something braking; the sound of snapping plastic.

There it was again.

And again.

She cautiously made her way towards the living room. Something about last night had put her on full alert.

Maybe it was something to do with nearly dying multiple times.

Or having a strange alien hunter turning up in her apartment.

Regardless, she was becoming sensitive to every little sound; every groan, every creek. All her senses felt sharper, making her feel strangely on edge.

It was apprehension. It wasn't exactly fear. It was something she couldn't put her finger on.

She opened the door, and felt her heart breath a sigh of relief.

Scar was sitting at the table, fiddling with something she couldn't make out. She kept hearing the repeating sound of snapping plastic as he tinkered with whatever it was hidden behind his arms. As she steeped forward, he turned to her.

"Morning, sleepyhead." He said, his voice sounding teasing.

"Morning," she replied, trying to disguise a yawn. "You could have woken me up."

Scar grinned under his mandibles. The truth was, he didn't have the heart to wake her up after she had drifted off. She had just laid there, totally at peace, exhausted after her day's experiences. He had gathered her up in his arms to set her down on the bed, feeling shamefully reluctant to let her go when they reached the chamber. It hadn't helped that she'd wrapped her arms around his neck in her sleep, making it very difficult to set her down without waking her up. He'd sat with her for a while, hoping she'd release him by her own accord, while silently wishing she wouldn't let go.

He couldn't explain his feelings. There was just something about Lex that made him feel…

Scar couldn't even put a name to it.

He must have drifted off himself, for he'd woken in the early hours of the morning with Lex still in his arms. He'd held her for a while, staring down at her, until she finally stirred. He didn't want to alarm her when she woke up. Another shock after last night wouldn't go down too well. With much difficulty, and reluctance, he'd laid her down and left the chamber.

He had other matters to attend to.

Thankfully, it was nearly finished.

"What have you got there?"

Scar suddenly jolted back to reality as Lex approached him. He was a little worried. He didn't know how she would react to what he'd done.

Lex bent over his shoulder, expecting to see some complicated piece of alien technology. Her face fell when she noticed a metal frame and a small pile of dark, broken lenses.

"Those were my best shades!" she said angrily.

"They didn't seem to have much use," said Scar, innocently. "All they do is make your vision darker. And besides, if you're serious about joining the hunt you're going to need these."

He chipped the last piece of lens off the frame leaving it bare. He then took something from his belt and held it up for Lex to see.

It was a set of visors. Lex glanced at them.

"Those are the goggle-things on your mask, aren't they?"

"Yes," Scar replied, sighing in exasperation. Oomans seemed to have a habit of pointing out the obvious at annoying moments. "And these are my spares, so don't break them."

He held up the frame and visors for a quick comparison.

"They'll be a bit big, but they'll have to do. They won't work if I cut them down to size."

He fished a tube of what looked like toothpaste out of his medical kit and spread a small amount over the frame. After smoothing the adhesive down, he pressed the visors onto the frame. On contact, the once white paste went clear. If Lex hadn't seen Scar applying it, she wouldn't have known it was even there.

Scar held up his creation for inspection, checking the strength of the bond between frame and visors before handing them to Lex.

"Try them on." He said. "They won't work as well as the full helmet, but they'll do."

Lex inspected her cannibalised sunglasses. The visors extended roughly two inches off the frame on each side, but felt surprisingly light in her hands. She turned to Scar.

"What do you mean _work_?" she asked.

Scar groaned in annoyance. "Just put them on." he growled.

Lex cautiously slipped the former designer sunglasses onto her face.

"I can't see anything."

"What? Do you need your eyes tested or something?"

"No. It's just all I can see is this room but very dark. You might as well have glued another set of shades onto my olds ones."

Scar sighed. "Probably takes a bit longer to adjust to ooman brainwaves."

"What? You didn't tell me this thing would start screwing with my brain!"

Scar just ignored her. He was more interested in the visors. Had the adhesive short circuited them? Maybe it was a loose connection. Or maybe the visors simply didn't work unless they were linked into the helmet's control circuit.

He was just about to take them off her when the visors suddenly flashed yellow and Lex gasped.

"Better?"

Lex just stared. Her vision had suddenly gone completely clear. It was as if the lenses weren't in front of her eyes at all. It was odd, not only had the visors seem to have lost their dark hue, which had obscured her sight almost completely, but everything seemed a lot sharper than usual, and with much greater depth. Everything's features seemed a lot more prominent, ruled out in almost non-existent lines; the marks in the wood on the table, the jagged edges of the chunks of rubble scattered across the floor… it was as if her entire vision had gone into a behind the scenes extra on a CGI movie!

She turned to Scar, expecting to see him in a quality that human eyes couldn't naturally provide, but, for some reason, he didn't seem to be affected by the visors. He just looked normal, and a little distorted. Lex wondered if the visors only worked on inanimate objects.

She was about to question Scar, when he cut across her.

"Well, can you see me?"

Lex was a little surprised, if not a little annoyed by this.

"Would you quit with the whole eye-testing gag?" she growled. "Of course I can see you!"

"Good. At least we know they actually work."

Lex was confused. "What do you…?"

She slipped the visors off, and stared. Scar wasn't there. He'd just, vanished!

Then she remembered the hunter's ability to turn invisible.

Curiously, she slipped the visors back in front of her eyes. As they slipped over her field of vision, Scar came back into focus, a little distorted, but plainly visible.

"You see?" said Scar as he pressed a button on his wrist device, deactivating the cloaking field. As the cloaking faded away, Lex watched Scar became completely clear. All the distortion and haziness that had shrouded his figure evaporated, leaving him in the same sharp detail as the rest of the room.

Lex just stared as the predator came into focus. With his cloaking off, she could see him in enormously improved detail: every rippling muscle beneath his tawny skin, every notch in his metallic armour, the darkened stripes which seemed to cover his skin like those on a tiger… and his eyes. Those deep, amber eyes that she couldn't take her own from.

"Are you alright?"

Lex snapped back to reality, a little anxious as the predator inspected her with a concerned look. She only hoped the visors could hide what her own eyes were revealing. She turned away from him, pretending to examine the remnants of the plastic lenses on the table, fighting the heat rising in her cheeks.

As she focussed on them, she was surprised as they suddenly expanded in her field of vision, giving her a closer, more detailed look at them. It reminded her of the zoom feature on a digital camera.

Scar had noticed her puzzled look. "Telepathic circuits," he explained. "Reads your thoughts and behaves like the retina in your eyes, only much more powerful and accurate. Those have a range of a quarter of an earth mile. They'd be able to show you thermal signatures, x-ray objects to a degree and a lot more when connected to the full helmet, but I'm afraid we don't have time to forge one from scratch. But you'll still be able to see through cloaking, zoom in on objects or people, and night vision. Got all that?"

"They let you see in greater depth, zoom in on objects or people, and allow you to see other hunters who are cloaked." Lex recited. She glanced at Scar, who nodded. "I suppose it would help make sure you don't accidentally strike another hunter during the hunt."

"And make you able to see your own hand in front of your face." Scar added. "I want to be certain you can see me when we go after the eggs. I can't carry you all the time and I'm not exactly keen to feel how good you are with a combi stick on the receiving end."

"Carry me?"

Lex stepped back, feeling a little shocked.

"Yes, Lex, I will have to carry you. Well," he said, noticing Lex's expression. "No offence, but you oomans aren't exactly too quick on you feet are you?"

"I'll show you how quick my feet can be," Lex growled, feigning a kick at the predator's shin, who simply stepped aside, chuckling. The thought of riding in the hunter's arms made her feel funny. It wasn't unease. Or fear. It was something else… one of the many things about Scar that Lex simply couldn't put her finger on. Not that she would let him know that, of course.

"Look, if you're serious about coming, it's your only option. I can't have you lagging behind half a mile away while we've got armed guards firing at us, or worse, hard meat snapping at our heels." Said Scar, very matter-of-factly. Of course, when you were a warrior, fleeing the battle was only ever a last resort, alongside setting off the self-destruct device, but it seemed to make the message hit home. The truth was, he was feeling apprehensive about carrying Lex, as well. It made his stomach feel light and strange, but not in a bad way.

Lex wasn't the only one with unclear and unnamed feelings.

Lex felt a smile creep onto her face as she pulled the visors off, only to have it reversed into a frown of concern. Now she could see in a natural state, a thought had struck her, sickeningly.

"Wait a minute! That means I'm gonna have to ride on your back through the whole thing!"

"How do you mean?" said Scar, amused.

"You're cloaking device only worked on me when I was making contact with you. Unless we go around holding hands or something, I'm gonna stick out like a sore thumb on the security cameras!" Lex could feel heat rising in her cheeks again, unsure of whether it was embarrassment or annoyance.

"As appealing as the offer sounds," said Scar, his grinning under his mandibles as Lex shot him a glare. "If the situation arises that we will need to engage Redway's security forces in combat, we will be at a severe disadvantage if we can only use one arm each, even if we are both cloaked. Besides, I think this will serve better."

He rummaged in his belt, retrieved what he was looking for, and then turned to Lex.

"Hold out your wrist," he instructed.

As Lex raised her left forearm to give Scar easier access, she noticed the device in his hand. This time, he hadn't destroyed one of her fashion accessories. He'd destroyed an old watch. The straps were the only section still intact, while the miniature digital clock had been removed.

Where the watch had been, there was now a plain, metallic disk with what appeared to be a concealed button in the centre. She was about to question Scar on exactly what it was when he grasped her forearm firmly, and strapped the device on.

"It needs to be secure, otherwise the circuit won't complete."

Scar had tightened the straps a little tighter than Lex would have like. Not tight enough to cut off circulation, but it was uncomfortable nevertheless. She was about to question Scar on its purpose, when he suddenly grasped her shoulder and pulled her towards him. Lex was a little alarmed at this, but then came two familiar sensations. A slight rush of cold across her body as Scar's cloaking activated, and an odd sensation in her stomach as Scar held her. She didn't even notice him press the switch on the device he'd just strapped to her wrist, and the rush of cold repeated.

She couldn't see him without the visors, and only realised his movements when he released her and took a step backwards from her, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. She was about to open her mouth to question, when once again he cut across her, this time with a victorious growl.

"Good! It works!"

"What? It didn't do anything!"

Lex held out her forearm and glanced down at it. Well, at least she would have if she'd been able to see her arm.

Lex stared, wide eyed. She held up both hands in front of her face, but saw nothing; just a peculiar haze that seemed to vaguely resemble the outline of her arm. She ran to the mirror, and stared back at her non-existent reflection. She could see nothing but the destroyed living room, and a very slight haze where the light was bent around her body.

It was a very funny feeling.

She turned back to Scar, or at least turned to face the spot where he stood. She couldn't see him without the visors, but he could see her perfectly. She walked blindly forward, feeling around for something solid suspended in the air.

She jumped and nearly cried out when a pair of invisible hands grabbed her shoulder.

"Boo!"

"Don't do that!" Lex swung round aimed a punch at the air, connecting rather painfully with Scar's breastplate.

As she shook her hand in an attempt to shake off the pain, she felt Scar grasp her forearm, firmly, but gently. There was a slight click, and Lex felt the chill around her evaporate. As the cloaking field deactivated, she watched her body dissolve back into reality. She watched as Scar too returned to faded into existence, still grasping her wrist, inspecting her hand.

"Sorry. That was a cheap trick."

Her hand wasn't badly hurt, but Scar looked as if he'd just impaled her with a sword. Lex felt the heat rise in her cheeks again, wondering. Could yautja cry?

"Don't worry about it. It's fine, really." She gently slipped her hand out of his grasp, watching his face the whole time. She knew she hadn't broken it, but the pain was still there. She chose to ignore it. She also decided to change the subject to put the hunter out of his misery.

"So, how does this thing work, anyway?"

Scar looked a little relieved at the change of subject, and his face brightened a little. "It's an emergency backup cloaking booster, in case the main cloaking system is damaged beyond repair in battle. It projects a semi-transparent image in front of the wearer, which bends the light around them, making them partially invisible."

"Partially? Oh yeah, the haze." Lex remembered only being able to see a vague outline of her arm when Scar was demonstrating. It reminded her of the when heat radiated from a machine or somebody's head on a cold day, swirling and bending like milk being mixed into coffee. Her thoughts snapped back as Scar continued.

"Well, it does create a certain degree of light distortion, but it's better to look hazy than being plainly visible to the enemy. You'll have to be careful with it, too. The booster will last for approximately half an Earth hour, but takes another half hour to recharge. Until then, it will be completely unresponsive. Here," he took hold of Lex's wrist again and produced what was left of the watch face he had previously removed. He pressed it onto the device, and it locked solid.

Lex stared at it. It looked like a completely normal watch, except it was digital and was showing a miniature clock face. What was strange about the thing was that the hour and the minute hands had stopped completely; the minute hand on the twelve, and the hour hand just off the six.

"The bigger hand indicates how much time you've got left," Scar explained. "The little hand is just there to show you how long you've got left until it's recharged, which should be about…"

Lex felt the device vibrate slightly around her wrist. "Now," Scar finished.

Lex peered at the device. The hour hand was turning backwards towards the twelve, finally stopping on the twelve, on top of the minute hand. "Handy," she said.

"I'm glad you like it," said Scar, his tone of voice considerably lighter. Obviously, he was feeling very chuffed. "To activate the cloak, just press the watch down until it locks. To deactivate, press it again. I've only tampered with the timer setting on that thin, but I've kept the other settings unchanged. You oomans seem to be very conscious of time."

"Thanks," Lex replied, not even hearing the last part. Absent mindedly, she pressed the button on the watch, switching it the normal digital clock setting. "Thanks for the gear, Scar. But, how did you do it? I didn't think your technology would be compatible with human technology."

"That puzzled me, too," said Scar, his mandibles twitching. "It's odd. Yautja technology is a lot more advanced than the stuff oomans have created. I thought it would be like trying to link a stone arrowhead into a radio. But, everything seemed to link perfectly. If I didn't know better, I'd say some of this stuff was yautja-made."

"If you didn't know better…" Lex was sat on the arm of the couch, frowning in thought. Scar approached her, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, Scar, it's just, well…" Lex trailed off for a moment. "You know I said there was something funny about Redway?"

"Apart from the face, the hair, the pompous personality, and the fact that he's going to let the eggs hatch and he just sent a trio of assassins after you?"

"Yeah," Lex continued. "The thing is, Redway Industries has got connections in practically every major company in the world. That included Weyland Industries, which they've only just recently taken over along with a handful of other companies."

"What's that got to do with yautja tech?" Scar asked, the sarcasm in his voice masking his puzzlement.

"Nothing, it's just that there was something funny about Redway. He said he like to _collect _things. I know your kind have been visiting Earth for centuries. Have you ever left stuff behind?"

"Not that I'm aware of. We remove every trace of ourselves whenever we leave an alien world."

"Aside from numerous dead bodies." Lex added, trying not to remind herself that the hunters would often go for human prey if there wasn't something bigger and more deadly available. "But do you ever, you know, dump stuff down here or anything? Any crashed ships? Any yautja been killed by humans?"

Scar hung his head. A painful thought had just strayed into his mind.

"We have had crashes," he said, solemnly. "But whenever they happen, and the transport is beyond repair, they're set to self destruct. We can't afford to leave derelicts lying around. If humans find the remains, they'll just take them for a crashed aircraft and sell them for scrap. Nothing too conspicuous is ever left behind."

"What about humans killing your kind?"

Scar sighed. This was the part of the conversation he'd been trying to avoid. "They're rare, but they do happen. Most of the time a self destruct device is triggered, obliterating the fallen, and hopefully the killer. But sometimes, it just isn't possible."

"How?" Lex's curiosity was only partly based on wanting to understand the predators better. The main factor was a growing suspicion.

"Sometimes oomans… get lucky." Scar paused, taking in a deep breath. He'd never talked much about what had happened with anybody, not even his late mother. He'd never wanted to. But Lex wanted to know, and he didn't feel like he could hide anything from her. Well, nearly anything.

"About twelve years ago, my father was sent to Earth. In the sector you oomans call Los Angelis. It was a routine mission. There was a war going on between the ooman authorities and groups of rebels who made money through the trafficking of illegal chemicals and slaughtered all who got in their way."

"Drug gangs." Said Lex, quietly.

Scar nodded, and continued. "The city was in such a state of chaos it was perfect for the hunt. Oomans often got caught in the crossfire, so it was easy to pick up a few trophies and leave no evidence that would cause much suspicion of our presence. Don't give me that look," he added, noticing Lex's appalled face out of the corner of his eye. "We don't target unarmed or helpless prey. We hunted the drug gangs, as you called them. We were doing you oomans a favour."

Lex was about to retort, when she stopped herself. Humans killed each other pointlessly in wars. Okay, so the hunters hunted and killed for trophies, but they seemed to single out the most dangerous and threatening targets. Whether they hunted humans or other dangerous species, like the hard meat, she could see that, in a way, they made the world a little better: eliminating threats and population control, despite their sinister methods. She tried to shake off the odd feeling that she was finding excuses for the predators' way of life.

"So, what happened?"

"My father was being pursued by the ooman government. And by a lone ooman male who was looking for vengeance after his companion was slain in the hunt." Scar explained. "The lone ooman got to him first, and managed to cut my father's hand off before he could trigger his self-destruct system. My father was forced to retreat, and the ooman defeated him in combat aboard the ship, using his own smart-disc. The elders took my father's body away, and they gave him a weapon as a sign of respect, just as you were, but in my eyes a lot less deserving."

Scar growled under his mandibles. He personally wished to find that ooman someday and avenge his father, just as he sought to avenge his master.

"I'm sorry," Lex had placed her hand in his, gently squeezing his much larger palms. Scar squeezed back, not taking his eyes off the floor. There was something comforting about having Lex to talk to. And her holding his hand allowed some of the grief to dissolve, only to build up again as he continued.

"There was another incident. More recently," he added, unintentionally cutting across Lex again. "It was just after the elders took me away. A hard meat got lose on the one of the pods that left the ship, killing the crew and crash-landing in the sector known as Colorado."

Lex was just about to question why the creature had been onboard the ship in the first place, when her eyes widened. "I heard about that!" she exclaimed, nearly pulling her hand away. "It was all over the news! An entire town got nuked!"

"All to destroy the remaining hard meat and the yautja sent on the clean-up mission."

"Clean-up?"

"It's a gentler term for extermination." Scar said bitterly "Not only did the adult hard meat get lose, but a small number of larvas escaped the crashed ship and impregnated several oomans. It was my master who the elders sent to clear up the mess."

"Your master?"

"In ooman tongue, his name was Wolf. He taught me how to fight and hunt, since my father was taken from me while I was still a pup." Scar took a deep breath. Lex was starting to wonder even more whether the hunters could cry. "He was like a father to me," Scar continued. "He taught me never to give up, no matter how bleak and hopeless the situation is. He taught me honour and raised me like his own up until my blooding ritual."

Lex tried to look into the predator's eyes, but he simply turned away.

"I was still out when he went Earth, and I didn't learn the truth until I woke up, not having him by my side. The elders didn't tell me much; just that he'd been caught in a nuclear explosion from the ooman military forces while engaging the hard meat queen in mortal combat. My master was destroyed, but he took the last of the hard meat with him." Scar lamented. There were no tears forming in his eyes, but he seemed to be shaking. He gripped Lex's hand a little tighter, and she squeezed him back, trying to reassure him.

In the end, Lex broke the long silence.

"I know this is difficult for you, Scar, but, like you said, there's a hunt going on out there. People will be waking up soon, and I think they'll be rather alarmed to find an apartment half destroyed with a strange, alien hunter inside holding my hand."

Scar seemed to return to reality, getting to his feet and releasing Lex's hand. Lex could have sworn he'd done it almost reluctantly, but she didn't care about that now. All she could do was smile as the hunter shook off his misery and stood proud and tall, the Scar Lex remembered.

"You're right. We've got a job to do. We'll hunt down the hard meat, or die trying."

"I'd go for the first one." Said Lex, smiling despite the thought of the danger they were about to face.

"Me too."

Lex was almost overwhelmed by how quickly Scar's demeanour had changed. A few minutes ago, who would have guessed he'd now standing confident and proud, a new fire blazing in his amber eyes, sparked by just a few words of encouragement.

Her words of encouragement.

Now it was her turn to feel chuffed.

"Let's go get the bastards!" she grinned, and Scar patted her shoulder, making her knees buckle.

But in all the emotion, Lex's suspicions concerning the link between human and yautja technology were forgotten.


	12. Flaw in the Plan

Lex's eyes stung as cold morning air whipped past her. The chill that Scar's cloaking system seemed to emit didn't help matters, either. Neither did his dreadlocks, billowing out in his wake, hitting her in the face with every movement.

Lex clung harder to Scar's armour as he leapt to yet another rooftop. When Scar had told her to hang on tight, he'd really meant it. Lex felt sure that any moment now her arms were going to give way or Scar would give a sudden, jarring movement and she'd have another unpleasant encounter with the sidewalk down below; only a little more fatal this time round.

Even though her life was in potential jeopardy, Lex could hardly contain her excitement. She could have screamed out loud with the thrill of literally flying over rooftops, if her heart hadn't been in her mouth, muffling out any sound before it even made it past her lips. The only sound that got that far was the occasional loud gasp as Scar swung in a loop-the-loop several times on a flagpole before flinging himself off, sailing majestically through the air before touching down on yet another roof, then pelting off at an incredible pace.

Lex was overwhelmed by the Predator's sheer speed. It was amazing that someone so big and muscular, clad in metallic armour at that, could move at such a pace. Buildings and city streets shot past in a blur. Pigeons scattered in front of them as Scar galloped forwards. He was a charging stallion, and she was his rider.

Too bad she hadn't managed to tame him.

Scar suddenly dug his heels into the gravel flooring on the top of a tower block, sending them both into a great, skidding slide. The tiny stones sprayed everywhere like bullets as Scar braked violently. The predator suddenly came to a jarring halt, bending double to rebalance himself, consequently catapulting Lex off his back and onto hers.

"Ouch!" Lex lay unceremoniously splayed on the flagged stone roof, the gravel digging into her skin as she sat up to shoot an annoyed glare at the hunter from behind her visors. "A little warning, next time? You're not exactly a smooth runner, you know!"

Scar chuckled, and held out a talloned hand to help the ooman to her feet. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself," he teased. "How many times have you travelled at over 50 mph over the rooftops of a city?"

"Quite a few, actually, on a plane." Lex retorted. "Much faster, safer and smoother than a yautja any day!"

The pair of them laughed. Lex had to admit that she'd been enjoying her little ride. Sure, planes and any other type of transport would have been safer, but it didn't give her the same thrill that yautja-travel did. Sure, she'd been continuously hit in the face by flaying dreadlocks, had her combi stick, which had been attached to Scar's belt for the whole journey, digging into her leg, and her fingers were slightly numb with cold, but it had been fun all the same.

"Where are we, anyway?"

"I'd think it was obvious," said Scar, throwing a glance over Lex's shoulder.

Lex turned. Sure enough, there it was- the great red-and-orange eyesore that was Redway's logo. The great orange "R" blazed out across the New York skyline, and Lex could believe that she hadn't noticed it until now. it could be seen from miles away, and looming over her like the mouth of some enormous creature which had been eating too much strawberry and orange flavoured candy.

She only snapped back to reality when Scar suddenly grabbed her arm, pulling her backwards to his chest.

"What the-?"

"Sorry," Scar hissed. "But if Redway's just sent a group of assassins out to kill you, it may look a bit conspicuous if one of his staff were to notice you were to suddenly turn up in plain view on the roof of a neighbouring building? You've got to conserve your cloaking, remember?"

"Yeah, sorry," Lex replied. "It's just a bit alarming when you suddenly grab hold of me out of nowhere!"

"I'll bare that in mind," said Scar, who had begun to fiddle with his wrist device while keeping a hold on Lex with his free hand. He gently guided her hand to his arm, tucking it under his elbow and getting her to grasp his arm, squeezing her hand gently before releasing her.

Lex could feel heat rising in her cheeks again, but tried to shrug it off.

"What exactly are we doing here, anyway?" she asked, looking back up at the skyscraper. "Shouldn't we be in there? You know, where the eggs are?"

"And where hundreds, if not thousands of oomans are, with armed security forces guarding our only known route to where the eggs are being stored? Not to mention in broad daylight? No, Lex. We'll have to do this under cover of darkness. Even with cloaking we're still vulnerable."

"Okay, okay, point taken." Lex said, defensively. She paused for a moment. "Then could you please explain to me why we're spying on Redway from across the street, several hundred feet in the air while the eggs are just as far below ground?"

"We're not spying," Scar growled through gritted teeth and mandibles. "I'm trying to find another way in. That is if I can get-this-stupid-thing-to-"

His wrist device suddenly sparked and fizzed violently, and Scar growled in his rage, cursing in his native language.

"Something wrong?" Lex asked, innocently.

"Is that a trick question?" Scar snarled, beating the obsolete device with a fist in his fury.

Lex was alarmed by this sudden outburst, and was about to let go when she felt the cloaking feel around them stutter. She quickly grabbed Scar's fist, trying to hold him back. Of course, her strength paled in comparison to the predator's but she held on all the same.

"Scar, getting angry doesn't solve anything. If you keep this up, you're only going to short the whole thing out and we'll both be exposed!"

Scar slowly lowered his fist, growling under his breath as he calmed down.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. What's wrong with the thing, anyway?"

Scar looked at his wrist device as if it was something nasty that had crawled out of the gutter, e.g. a pigeon, snarling. "There's a Sat-Com built into every wrist computer. It scans objects, buildings, structures, you name it, and then it projects the readings as a holographic image of the target in question. Interior, exterior, everything. I was going to use it to find us an alternative route into the vault, but it's still short circuiting from last night." Scar snarled angrily. "Damn you, Nescafe!"

Lex had to force herself not to laugh in case she angered her companion. Winding up an already pissed off yautja was never advisable, if you wanted to live or avoid potential injury. She knew Scar would never intentionally cause her any harm, but you could never be too careful around the hunters.

"I see," she said, gently. "Is there any other way you can take a look at the interior? Didn't you say the visors give us heat vision?"

"They give me heat vision, not you." said Scar, huffily. "They only work at full capacity when linked into the helmet's command circuit. And I've already tried it," he said, cutting over Lex yet again when she opened her mouth to speak. "I was watching you when you first went into the building. I lost your signature completely as soon as you went below ground level."

Scar sat down on the ledge that bordered the roof, bringing Lex down with him. Lex clung to his arm even tighter, trying to keep her eyes off the streets below. The predator was sulking. Obviously he was disappointed about missing his hunt.

The hunt…

Lex suddenly jumped up, nearly severing the cloak's connection between her and a very alarmed looking Scar.

"I've got it!" she cried.

"Got what?" Scar asked, still frowning. "And keep your voice down, the cloak doesn't muffle sound, you know."

"Sorry," said Lex, in a slightly more hushed voice. "But you said you had come to hunt here with another hunter, didn't you?"

"Not exactly," said Scar, more than a little puzzled. "Shadow and I hunt alone."

"Whatever. Look, he's got a Sat-Com, doesn't he? You must have some way of contacting him. Tell him to come here and then we can use it. Besides, it would help to have a little extra backup."

"You can't be serious!" Scar stood up, amber eyes wide behind his visors. "Yautja as a whole aren't exactly ooman-friendly, you know. Especially not Shadow. Lex, we've been here for just over a week and he's already slain at least seven oomans! It was a street gang," he added quickly, noticing the look on Lex's face. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want your skull added to his collection of trophies."

Lex fixed him with steely eyes. "There's another reason, isn't there?"

"I don't know what you mean," Scar sniffed, turning away. He had a feeling she'd already guessed his hidden motives for not wanting Shadow tagging along.

"This is all some big macho-male contest, isn't it?" said Lex coldly, not taking her eyes off Scar. "Whoever gets the most trophies wins. Scar, I know that you two have some sort of rivalry going on, but now's not the time for games. For all we know, those things could have already hatched and grown into adults. And they'll spread. There are about 20 million people in this city, Scar, all potential hosts. Think about it, 20 million of those things going on a killing spree. We could hardly stop a dozen of them. What's more important- trophies or staying alive?"

Scar sighed. "Lex, he kills oomans for fun. They hardly ever see him coming until its too late. Not too many yautja would take an ooman for an ally."

"You did."

"That was… different. You'd demonstrated immense courage and skill as a warrior." Scar shuffled his feet. He was running out of excuses.

"Don't try to sweet-talk me, Scar." Lex felt her cheeks heat again, but she pushed it aside. "And besides, I've got this." She indicated the mark on her cheek.

"Lex-"

"Not only that, I've got you." Lex continued, squeezing Scar's arm a little tighter. Scar could feel heat rising in his face. He thanked the gods that it was hidden behind his mask. "Do you think he'd dare try anything funny with you around? From what you've told he sounds like nothing more than a cowardly trickster that couldn't hold a candle to you."

Scar felt heat rising in his chest. Lex had found the hunters' one weakness- pride.

He wasn't sure whether it was the flattery itself that had got him, or the fact that it was coming from Lex. Scar admired Lex for her courage and skill in battle, but he was also very fond of her. It was a type of fondness he'd never felt so strongly before, and he felt like he could hardly say to her.

"I suppose…" he growled. "He's more likely to be a hinder than a help. He's very arrogant and full of himself, but he's a strong warrior nonetheless."

"Plus, he doesn't even know where the eggs are being held." Lex piped up. "You wouldn't kill your only guide before setting off on a mission, would you?"

Scar grunted in agreement. "I still think it's a bad idea, but what choice do we have?" he growled grudgingly as he began punching a combination into his wrist device. Thankfully, the coms system was still coffee-free.

The device began to whir and hum. Scar waited impatiently for Shadow to answer.

"_Kahn, are you there_?" Scar switched to his native language of clicks and growls. It was easier to talk in, and he could keep anything said a secret from Lex, should Shadow say anything which may offend or alarm her.

Not to mention Shadow would probably start wondering aloud why he was speaking in almost fluent ooman instead. He growled silently in the satisfaction of knowing he could speak it miles better than his comrade could.

There was a long silence

"G'raal?"

Scar nearly jumped as a familiar voice suddenly clicked out of the intercom.

"There you are, you bastard! Where the hell have you been?"

"Ooh, who's a bit tetchy today? If you must know, I've been busy. I just bagged another handful of trophies. Caught anymore pigeons lately?"

Scar snarled at the taunt.

"Maybe I'll show you how a real yautja hunts at the end of the hunt if you ask nicely."

Scar snarled loudly. This must have alarmed Lex as he felt the grip on his arm weaken considerably. He shook himself mentally, reminding himself of the situation at hand.

"Shut up and listen! I've got news for you: there's a bigger hunt going on as we speak." Scar knew that talking in riddles would keep Kahn interested, and help to draw the hunter in.

"Says who?" Shadow sniffed. Scar was finding it increasingly harder to ignore the other hunter's arrogance.

"Says I. Look, I need you to meet me in the city centre; on the roof of the building directly west ooman building baring the enormous red-and-orange ooman symbol."

"You mean that enormous eyesore?"

"Yes, that's the one. I… we need you Sat-Com. And I need you here, now. We need to talk."

"We?"

"I'll explain when you get here. Just hurry up."

There was a long, deafening silence.

"Why should I?" came the hissed reply.

Scar took a deep breath, snarling under his breath in annoyance. "Kahn… I might just choke before I finish this sentence, but…I need you."


	13. Shadow

Lex could feel that familiar sensation that had been rising in her gut since she got that ominous visit from Kayne. It wasn't fear. It was a blend of excitement, and dread.

Scar was the only hunter she'd ever got up-close-and-personal with, unless you counted that brief encounter with the yautja Elder in Antarctica who had handed her the combi stick she now held poised, ready to strike if needed. Or when needed.

Scar had told her to wait in at the top of the stairwell which connected the lower floors to the roof, safely hidden and out of harms way. The suspense was killing her; she could barely control her breathing. Lex only hoped that meeting this other hunter would be like taking her exams in college- the wait being worse than the actual encounter itself. She tried not to remind herself that the only exams this applied to had been social studies, environmental science, sports, and geography- all of which had lead her to her previous job as a guide, and had been familiar with all her life, thanks to her father.

Scar waited and waited, leaning against the entrance to the stairwell. The apprehension wasn't doing him any favours, either. He felt nearly sick with worry. Lex's safety, if not her life, hung in the balance and he had to get this right. If her presence was revealed prematurely, it could only spell disaster. He was trying as best he could to hide her from view, leaning against the metal doors and covering the gap that separated them. Of course, Lex was hidden away in a corner behind said doors, but he had learned the hard way you can never be too careful.

Yautja senses are very sharp. They can hear their prey's breathing and heartbeat around 15 metres away. They can smell their breath, and the scent of their fear. Even without detecting their prey, they can still sense the presence of other beings.

Scar was surprised that even he couldn't smell Lex that well, and she was only separated from him by a few inches worth of brickwork and hollow metal doors. He'd chosen their position very carefully, so they were not downwind. Hopefully this would make stop Shadow smelling Lex out. For a while, at least.

He just hoped Shadow wouldn't have heat vision on when he arrived.

He was just going over the same scenario in his head for the thirteenth time when at last he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, crunching the gravel with each movement. Scar gave a sour smile. Not even Shadow could sneak up on him in this particular environment.

"You took your time," Scar growled as the older hunter approached.

Shadow was an inch or two taller than him, with a couple more years of experience, but Scar wasn't intimidated in the slightest. He was a lot thickly built than his comrade, and could easily handle him in hand-to-hand combat. Shadow was built more for speed and agility than brute strength. Scar knew he'd still have to be wary, but it wasn't his safety he was worried about. It was Lex's.

Shadow didn't answer. He just continued his approach, the gravel crunching under his talloned feet with every step. Scar was starting to get nervous. Shadow was being unnaturally silent, even by his standards.

The predator finally came to a halt, just under a couple of feet separating them. There was an agonizing silence. Shadow's mask hid his expression, doing nothing to help Scar's unease.

He was just considering giving his comrade's face a quick scan, when Shadow finally spoke.

"I sense an ooman." He clicked.

Scar gulped.

"This is a city, you know. Oomans tend to live in them."

"There's one within close range," Shadow hissed, extending his wrist blades.

"We're both cloaked," Scar said quickly. "The ooman can't see us; or understand us for that matter. Just leave it alone." He prayed that the other hunter hadn't detected the light falter in his voice.

"Since when did you become an ooman sympathiser?" sneered Shadow, his wrist blades still unsheathed. "They're nothing but prey, G'raal, and you know it."

"Prey that will lash out at whatever kills one of their own right in front of their faces." Scar stated, rather matter-of-factly. "Unless you've haven't been paying attention, I'm sure you'll have noticed nearly every building in this city is riddled with security cameras. Cloaked or not, it will seem a bit odd if one suddenly drops to the ground in a pool of blood."

"Then when it comes out here," Shadow hissed, moving his body into an attacking stance.

"I've sealed the door, you great idiot! What did you expect me to do, lean casually against a door when some random ooman could come through at any second? Or take the risk that you might decide to run a couple of blades through her gut in front of an entire building watching ooman eyes? They're not that stupid, Kahn, and they're not blind either." Scar was starting to get angry in his defence.

"Her?"

Scar suddenly felt his blood run colder than usual. He'd let something slip already.

"What do you mean _her_?" Shadow hissed, the suspicion clear in his voice.

"The ooman's female." Scar said quickly. "I checked. She's just cleaning the floors." He was trying very hard not to make his excuses sound too obvious. He was also glad they'd both retained their native tongue. Lex would have punched him for passing her off as a cleaner.

There was a long pause.

Scar wasn't sure that Shadow believed his story. But he couldn't worry about that now. All he cared about was keeping Lex safe until the time was right.

"Well, what's so important that we've both been called out of the hunt?" Shadow's posture relaxed and he withdrew his wrist blades. Finally, he was ready to listen.

Scar breathed a sigh of relief. Now came the easy part: convincing Kahn that the infant hard meats were in the building, to let him use his Sat-Com, to form a temporary truce between the pair of them, and, most importantly, to form an alliance with and not kill Lex. What could be simpler?

"I've received word from… intelligence that-"

"Intelligence? Don't give me that dribble. If the Elders had a mission for us they would have contacted us both simultaneously."

Scar paused for a moment.

"Our target has been reported to have advanced tracking technology, for ooman standards, anyway. Contacting us both would have been too much of a risk. That's why I had to disable my wrist device to mask the signal's origin."

"With a high caffeine human beverage?"

"It was all that was available at the time," Scar lied. "Now, are you going to listen or not."

Scar didn't care too much whether Shadow believed his bluff or not. As soon as his comrade learned of the Kainde Amedha, he'd be on them like New York's pigeons on a perched yautja trying to single out a target. The only real challenge that would be involved was convincing him to let Lex live, and, eventually, lead the hunt.

Shadow fell silent once again. Scar took that as his cue to continue.

"Anyway, as I was saying, the hunt's changed. There's new prey and a new target."

"Where? Which sector? What location?"

"You're looking at it." Scar threw a glance over his shoulder at the building behind him.

Shadow stared at the enormous eyesore of a logo.

"They don't exactly do much to disguise their presence, do they?" he growled sarcastically.

"At last now we agree on something." Scar replied.

He was trying his best to lighten the mood. He didn't want his comrade to be antagonised when he revealed Lex's presence. At least now Shadow's suspicions seemed to be dissipating.

"So who's the target, then? Some ooman with more influence and wealth than sense? Leave it to me; I'll get the job done about in half an hour."

"In broad daylight with just under a thousand oomans, heavily armed security forces and the fact you don't even know where, who or what your prey is?" Scar half growled, half sighed, exasperated.

"Shouldn't take too long."

This was typical Shadow- hot-headed and over confident 'till the last.

"You don't even know what we're hunting!"

"Enlighten me then."

Scar's temper was starting to boil over. Shadow's attitude was really starting to get on his nerves. He was just considering whether or not to to strike his comrade, when a small voice came from behind the door.

"Scar?"

Lex's voice made Scar's blood run cold again.

Shadow perked up immediately, marching towards the doorway that separated the two hunters from his prey. He released his wrist blades again, only to have his way barred by a wall of tawny-coloured, armour clad muscle.

"Out of the way." Shadow hissed angrily, raising the blades into an attacking stance.

"Leave her alone."

Shadow ignored him, trying to push past, only to have Scar's palm thrust out blindingly fast, connecting heavily with his chest plate. The force sent the hunter sliding backwards, scattering stones and snarling angrily.

The older yautja went into a reckless, full-on sprint, the wrist blades trained on his comrade. Scar quickly sidestepped in front of the opening between the two doors, releasing his own blades and stepping into a defensive stance.

Noticing his movements, Shadow same to a sudden halt, falling silent once again as he studied Scar from behind his visors.

"What are you hiding?" he snarled threateningly.

Scar sighed. So much for that plan.

He didn't want to do this, but what choice did he have?

"Lex," he called out in ooman tongue. "Plan B."

The doors behind him unlocked and opened with a clang. There was a pause, and then his companion stepped forth from the shadows.

Lex could feel her heart hammering against her ribcage as she approached the two hunters. Her hand firmly grasped the combi stick in her right hand, ready to defend herself as she took this new predator in.

His form was the same as Scar's: tall, muscular, clad in metallic armour, mask, dreadlocks, etc. but this yautja looked completely different to the one she'd allied herself with in Antarctica.

This hunter was taller than Scar, with a build which reminded Lex of an athlete: muscular yet slender and speedy, and a lot less bulky than Scar. She guessed that her hunting partner had considerably more upper body strength than this yautja, but Shadow was a lot more skilled in the field of speed and agility, a deadly combination in skilled hands. Already Lex was getting the picture of why she should fear this particular warrior.

This predator's skin had a dark, almost olive-green hue, with his underbelly considerably lighter, similar to the flesh of a cucumber. Like Scar, he too was clad in the strange black netting from neck to toe, and metallic battle armour, shining silver-grey but a great deal more battle marked than Scar's, scratched and deeply gashed in places. Several blackened burn marks went right through to the hunter's chest, where Lex guessed this hunter had learned the acidic effects of the hard meats' acidic blood first hand.

The Shadow's dreadlocks were the same length as Scar's, just over shoulder length, but the mask they flowed behind couldn't be more different. It was the same basic shape, but the mouth guard was a lot thinner, and the mask itself was a lot more pointed, giving the already alien appearance a slightly wilder look, like that of a jackal or a hyena. It didn't have the fanged design she'd seen on one of the two yautja who'd accompanied Scar into the pyramid, but it still had a very wild, animalistic appearance.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. True, she was fearful of this hunter, but she wasn't going to let him intimidate her. She fixed him with a steely gaze through the visors Scar had made for her. His hid his eyes, so she couldn't read his expression. He just stared at her, his expressionless mask giving her the creeps.

Shadow was still wondering what to make of this strange ooman. She had entered _announced _by his comrade, and stood facing him, not showing any fear whatsoever.

Perhaps she needed a little encouragement…

Shadow reached up to his mask, releasing the connection cables with a hiss of changing pressure. Lex stared up as talloned hands closed on the edges of the mask, slowly prising it off. Lex braced herself, knowing what was coming next.

The predator removed the mask completely, clipping it onto his belt. Like the mask, his face was considerably thinner than the yautja Lex had faced previously. The hunter's eyes were blood red, thin and pointed in shape like those of hawk. His teeth were short and pointed, like a piranha's, and the tooth-like protrusions on the end of each mandible were like miniature daggers.

Lex felt herself shiver, but stood her ground. She knew that this was simply a test of nerves.

A test she had passes five years ago.

Shadow was surprised that the ooman hadn't screamed, fled or even flinched when he'd revealed his true appearance; after all, it was a sight that for many oomans was their last. However, this female did nothing. She just stared him out, not giving an inch. Either she was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. Only a select few oomans in the entire history of creation had ever glimpsed a yautja's face and lived to tell the tale.

He caught the scent of her fear, and although it was comparatively weak, he smirked. He'd soon fix that.

Lex noticed the shift in Shadow's expression. Was he… smiling? Had she passed the test already? She lowered the combi stick a little, ready to address the new hunter, confident that the worst was over.

She should have known that was nothing but wishful thinking.

All of a sudden, the predator roared, so damned loudly that it made her eardrums rattle. She growled under her breath. She'd forgotten about the roaring part of the test. She braced herself, but didn't move.

"If you really want to give our position away, just turn your cloaking off."

All of a sudden, the predator lunged at her. Lex backed away, holding up the combi stick only to have in smashed out of her hands. The staff fell to the floor with a clang of steel and a crunch of gravel.

She was defenceless.

Well, almost.

As the predator made another lunge for her again, a shadow suddenly fell upon her. There was a clang of steel and a loud, booming warning growl. Lex opened her eyes to see Scar and Shadow, wrist blades and eyes locked, staring at each other with pure venom in their eyes. Scar's mask lay on the floor before her, and as Lex bent down to retrieve it, she heard Scar snarl out a warning in his native tongue.

"Leave her alone."

Shadow stared back into the tall, tawny face, contorted with anger and rage. He glared back at Scar, a look of pure malice on his.

"Why should I?"

"Notice anything different about her? Remember what I said on the intercom?"

Shadow hadn't forgotten. He'd just ignored it.

Shadow tore his eyes away from his opponent to stare at the ooman female, who was retrieving the other hunter's mask. As she got to her feet, her dark hair fell away from her face, revealing the distinctive mark on her cheek.

The mark of the warrior.

He slowly weakened his grip on Scar's wrist blades, releasing them both from their locked position. He took a step backwards, lowering his weapons, not taking his eyes off of Lex.

"Where did you get that?" he hissed.

Lex startled when the predator spoke. His voice wasn't deep like Scar's, as she'd expected, but had a more sinister feel to it, more lizard or snake-like. It seemed this yautja hadn't learned how to speak English quite as well as Scar had. It sounded very similar to the predators' native lingo.

"Well?"

At first she didn't answer Shadow's question. She couldn't. She was still in a state of shock, and although she managed to open her mouth, no words came out.

This annoyed Shadow. First the ooman mouths off to him then doesn't answer when she's spoken to. Oomans were so annoyingly slow. He advanced on her, ready to force the answer out of her if need be.

But an all too familiar figure barred his way, stepping between him and the ooman.

Scar held out an arm in front of Lex protectively, answering the question for her in a threatening snarl in plain English. "I gave it to her."

Shadow stopped dead, staring at his fellow hunter.

"Thanks," Lex breathed from behind him.

Scar didn't answer, he just watched closely as the expression on the hunter's face changed from amazed to a mixture of calculating and suspicion. Unease settled over him again. He decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands.

"I marked her as a warrior after my blooding ritual," he said quietly, switching to his native tongue. The less Lex heard the better. "She slew many hard meat drones, several warriors and the queen by my side. I am not ashamed to admit that she saved my life several times during said encounter and I still owe her a life debt." Scar reminded himself that although he had saved Lex from the fall, she had in turn warned him of the assassins' bomb.

Shadow didn't answer. He just stood their, still staring, calculating silently. Scar thought it best to continue.

"I formed an alliance with her after she returned the plasma caster I needed to complete the ritual and saved me from an onslaught by a full-grown hard meat warrior. She also assisted me with the destruction of the infestation and our escape to the surface. She had demonstrated incredible courage during our encounter and it would have been a disgrace not to present her with the mark. Whether you like it or not, she's part of the clan."

The thought struck Scar silent fro a moment. Lex was part of the clan. His clan. His… family. He didn't know what the other warriors or the Elders would make of it, but would it be possible to-

"That still doesn't explain why she carries or weapons and our equipment."

Shadow's hissing voice snapped Scar out of his thoughts. Precious fantasies were pushed aside once again. He growled under his breath as he continued.

"The Elders saw the whole thing. The queen perished by her hand after it mortally wounded me in combat. This woman here sent the deadliest creature in existence to an icy grave at the bottom of the Antarctic sea while I lay motionless on the ice." Scar shivered, remembering everything slipping away, the last thing to be consumed by the darkness being Lex's face… and voice.

"They presented her with the weapon as a sign of respect while the other warriors took me to the healer's quarters." Scar trailed off again, remembering the chance he'd missed all those years ago, all because of a language barrier and a really pissed off queen. Maybe he'd have better luck this time around.

"And the… equipment?" Shadow asked, looking with disdain at Lex's cannibalised sunglasses and watch.

"A gift." Scar said simply. "Weapons for the hunt." He added quietly.

"WHAT?" Shadow stared even wider than before.

Scar knew this wasn't going to be easy, but he had to try

"She has already been inside the target building, and encountered our primary target. She made contact with me and agreed to lead us to their precise location as long as we wipe them out. She needs our help and we need her to guide us to it."

"I could find that out from a Sat-Com scan," Shadow hissed. "I don't need an ooman to lead me to my prey, unlike some yautja."

"I've already tried it," Scar growled, fighting to keep his anger under control. "The outside of the underground complex is made of a material which prevents internal Scans. Just accept it, Khan; you need us as much as we need you. My Sat-Com is no longer operable and you don't know where you're going or what you're hunting. We need a way in and you need a guide."

This wasn't completely false. Scar had scanned the building a couple of times while he waited on the roof for Lex to leave, trying to find her. Unfortunately, he'd found nothing, and an enormous floating hologram of a building floating in mid air hadn't exactly helped to mask his presence. He just hoped his rival would believe him.

Shadow stood in silence, calculating. Lex was getting more and more nervous. She had absolutely no clue what the two yautja were saying, or what the hell was going on. And the expression on Shadow's face wasn't helping, either. It reminded her of a Bond villain.

She startled again when she felt a peculiar sensation around her skin. One moment the cold of the cloaking was there, the next, it was gone, then it was back again, stuttering like a candle caught in the breeze. To her horror, she realised what was happening. She threw a glance at her bodged cloaking device. The time was up and the power was gone. She felt herself fade into existence, standing in broad daylight for all to see.

"Scar?"

Her companion didn't answer. He just continued to glare back at Shadow.

"Scar, a little help, please?"

"What?" the annoyance was prominent in Scar's face and voice as he glanced at her, only to have his eyes widen in shock as he quickly grasped Lex's wrist.

Lex felt the familiar sensation of Scar's cloaking washing over her like a cold shower, and walked with the hunter's pull moving to stand by his side.

She noticed Shadow's gaze.

"My cloaking's only temporary," she explained. "It takes another half an hour to recharge."

"How cute," Shadow sneered, his voice full of mocking. "You've taught it to speak."

Scar growled threateningly. Lex just shot the predator a dirty look. He'd spoken in English, so she'd understood him perfectly.

"Looks like you've learned, too."

Shadow wasn't paying her any attention. He just turned back to her companion.

"Scar?" he asked, switching back to yautja tongue.

"It's what she called me during our encounter in the pyramid, and I like it." Scar replied simply. "I haven't bothered to correct her."

"Seems logical," Shadow sneered. "It might shock her to learn the truth."

Scar growled a warning. A warning Shadow noted, but ignored.

"Well, does it have a name?"

"Yes _she_ does," Scar growled. "Her name is Alexa Woods, Lex for short."

"Cute…" Shadow sneered. He was enjoying this little taunt.

"Is anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on between you two?"

The two hunters turned to stare at the ooman woman.

Lex had had enough. She couldn't understand what the two of them were saying, but it all seemed to be going in circles. She had lost her patience and her temper. She stared directly up into Shadow's face, ignoring the imposing alien features.

"Well, do you want to help or not?" she demanded, meeting the yautja eye-to-eye.

Shadow stared imposingly down on her. Lex was determined not to show this bastard any fear or give him the slightest inch of ground. The predator stared back into her eyes, crimson meeting mahogany.

There was a long silence.

"Well, looks like you do have some spunk after all," Shadow sneered mockingly.

Lex ignored him. She just forced herself to keep staring into those blood-red eyes. Any sign of weakness the predator was sure to use to his advantage.

The hunter stared back into her eyes, giving her a piercing look. Lex had never been one for staring contests, but this was one she was determined to win. She forced herself not to blink, unsure of whether or not the yautja could blink. It was all very one-sided.

At last, Shadow broke him gaze, and the silence simultaneously.

"Well then, Alexa Woods, what's the prey you're so desperate to have us destroy for you?" he said at last.

Lex felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. A breakthrough at last!

She took a deep breath, this time not meeting the other hunter's eye as she spoke.

"My people called them serpents," she recited, remembering Sebastian translating the hieroglyphics on the walls of pyramid. "You and your kind call them Kainde Amedha; or Hard Meat. Whichever's easiest to pronounce."


	14. Tunnel Vision

"Got any spare change, sir?"

The man walked past the other with a look of revulsion on his face, crossing to the other side of the road to avoid him.

Greg looked after the younger, well-groomed, businessman and aimed the empty liqueur bottle at his head. The bottle flew a few feet, and shattered harmlessly in the road.

"Bastard!" he spat bitterly on the ground, giving the retreating architect the finger before retreated back to the crevice between the two dumpsters that he called home.

He sat, crouched on the flattened cardboard box and scabby blankets he had lined the floor with, along with any garbage that would stay the cold, and didn't stink to the high heavens. Candy wrappers rustled and empty bottles clinked loudly as he sat back, regarding his environment.

He couldn't remember how he had found this place; just that this was the place he'd found himself in eight months ago, and hadn't moved from since. He had lost everything. He couldn't remember how, exactly, all he had was a sickening feeling that someone had stripped him of everything- everything he ever owned or ever was. He had nothing. He was no one; Just another deadbeat living on the streets of Manhattan, staring up at the enormous red-and-orange "R" which dominated the skyline.

He couldn't explain how, but it seemed familiar in some respect, and it filled him with rage just looking at it. The fact that he couldn't remember why was only a mere fraction of the matter. The very sight of the thing filled him with pure rage, blazing around him insides like fire and consuming every part of him. Then he'd take another swig from one of his bottles and all would be lost in a blur.

A blur like the three figures, who suddenly strolled past him.

He couldn't see them properly; they seemed to be composed almost entirely of the heat haze that radiated off the sidewalk in midsummer. One figure, taller than the others, walked ahead, holding out his wrist as if regarding a watch. The other two moved along together, joined, or connected somehow. One was a lot taller than the other, and much bigger and sturdier in build. The other was quite plainly a woman, dwarfed by the sheer size of the others. She carried what seemed to be a tree branch in one hand, while the other appeared to be grasping that of the other.

He couldn't see their faces, but he could sense something between those two. Friendship? Simple fondness? Companionship? Mutual attraction? L…

He told himself he was just drunk, again. He had to be to see them in such a state.

"Got any spare change?" he said feebly, holding out the empty soup tin he used for begging. A solitary penny rattled in the bottom as he held it up. He now hoped he was drunk. Any method of making himself look more pathetic would increase his chances of raking in some cash.

Cash to buy the alcohol he needed to blind himself from the harsh reality of the world.

All three figures stopped abruptly, facing him. He stared back at them, still unable to make them out. They towered over him, and yet not casting a show or blocking the light from the setting sun. They were there, and yet, not there at the same time.

None of them spoke.

"Got any spare change?" he repeated, hoping that they were not simply hallucinations brought on by the cheap vodka in his right hand.

At these words, the tallest figure suddenly lunged at him, grabbing him by the throat and hoisting him roughly into the air. A sudden rush of cold enveloped him as he hung from the attacker's hand, clenched tightly around his throat and making breathing almost impossible.

Definitely not an illusion.

He struggled and thrashed, but was too weak to resist the man's sheer strength. The alcohol clouding his senses didn't help, either. He blindly lashed out with his only weapon, the glass bottle. He thrashed his arms violently, trying desperately to make contact with anything, anything at all which would cause his attacker pain. Finally, he brought it down to meet the assailant's head with a loud smash and the splash of liquid.

And the clang of metal.

Fragments of glass fell harmlessly to the floor, but no blood mixed with the transparent liquid that pooled on the floor.

There was a sound of slicing metal and a loud snarl. His eyes bulged open as the grip on his neck tightened, and he made the figure out to be bringing his arm back, with what resembled a long knife in his hand Greg braced himself and closing his eyes tight, tears streaming in his eyes, waiting for the end.

But it didn't come. A voice came instead. A female voice. The voice of the smallest of the figures. He couldn't make out what she was saying, as the alcohol had blurred his hearing as well as his sight. All he could tell was that it was some kind of an argument, the figure holding him replying in a hissing, sinister voice, with a deep warning growl and a voice just as deep sounding as if it was speaking in the defence of the smallest of the trio.

Suddenly, the hand released him and he fell to the floor, gasping for breath and clutching his throat. He curled into a foetal position to protect himself from any further attacks, but none came. All he heard was the sound of footsteps growing fainter, and the chink of coins in his money tin. He sat up.

The three figures had gone. He could sense it. The strange haziness was gone and the air was clears, aside from the smog from a car's exhaust as it passed him by. He picked up the tin and emptied the contents into his hand: three quarters, two dimes, one nickel and the old, rusty penny.

"Every cloud has a silver lining," he thought as he rummaged for another bottle of vodka. The drink dulled the pain instantaneously, soothing the walls of his crushed throat.

He had just emptied the entire contents of the bottle down his throat, when he heard the sound of a car drawing up. He didn't take of it until he heard the sound of doors opening and multiple footsteps approaching.

He looked up to see a truck standing on the curb, with no logo, writing or anything to distinguish it whatsoever. It was just a plain, dull, dirty grey, and was completely featureless. A gloss black BMW was parked in front, the doors closing with a snap. Tall men dressed in smart, important-looking suits approached him, dark sunglasses hiding their eyes. They all came to a stop before him, the glare from the sunset making their features indistinguishable.

One of them bent down to his level, taking off his shades. Greg stared at the gaunt, strangely familiar face. He _knew_ this man. But from where?

"Well, well, well; if it isn't old Greg Simmons."

Greg startled. "How do you know my name?" he demanded.

"Oh, I know a lot about you, Simmons. We used to work together. You were just a little too nosey with the boss's private files."

Suddenly, two of the men seized Greg by the arms, one of them punching him in the stomach, winding him. His head hung feebly like an old scruffy teddy bear losing the stitching in its neck, blood dripping from his mouth.

"Easy, boys. The boss wants them alive, for now, anyway. Throw him in the back with the others and let's get out of here."

The other two nodded, and began to drag Greg towards the back of the truck while another opened the doors. A hand feebly reached forwards, trying to claw its way out, but one of the men stomped on it, forcing it to retreat back into the shadowy depths. The man who had confronted the beggar held a cell phone to his ear.

"Mr Redway, sir. It's Smith. We've got the last one and are heading back."

The cold metal doors slammed from behind Smith as he hung up, the truck's engine roaring into life. He stepped back into the car, a look of contentment on his face.

-------------

"Why the hell did you attack him like that?"

"He noticed us. He was a threat."

"He was homeless, weak and drunk. He was completely harmless!"

"He could have alerted other oomans to our presence."

"Oh, and a sudden cry of pain and a dead body suddenly falling out of nowhere and soaking the sidewalk with blood wouldn't?"

"Same difference."

"Lex is right. And besides, it is against hunting code to kill defenceless or weak prey unless absolutely necessary."

Shadow was tiring of verbal jousting. This ooman was becoming more of an annoyance than he had previously anticipated, and the fact that his comrade was continuously siding with her just added to his irritation. She was an itch that he just couldn't scratch. As soon as he got to the hard meat, the better.

He glanced back at the other two, still grasping each other's arm, sharing the cloaking field. What was going on between them? What did this ooman mean to G'raal, really? Shadow had a feeling that there was something going on that the other hunter wasn't telling him…

He just shrugged it off, and went back to focusing straight ahead, leading the small party through the twisting network of streets and alleyways towards the subway.

Lex wasn't exactly enjoying Shadow's company, either. It had taken nearly an hour to fully convince the predator to let her guide the group once they got into Redway's building, and the fact that they were both as stubborn as each other hadn't helped matters either. The other thing that got on her nerves was Shadow's callous nature. He didn't seem to care what he did or the people he hurt or killed along the way, as long as he succeeded in the hunt.

At least she had Scar.

They walked alongside, their arms linked to maintain the cloaking connection. She looked up at the hunter, his face hidden behind the metallic mask.

"Thanks for backing me up," she said quietly.

"Don't mention it," said Scar gruffly, looking down at his companion. "But it is true, though. Yautja are forbidden from attacking weak or defenceless prey unless threatened or provoked. It's just not right," he added. "There is no honour in defeating a weak foe."

Lex felt herself shiver when she remembered when Scar had killed Mr Weyland back in Antarctica. Then again, he had set Scar on fire, and she would have been pretty pissed off if someone had done that to her.

She stared back up at him, and that familiar, light feeling rose again in her stomach. She tried to ignore it but she couldn't. She locked eyes with Scar, mahogany meeting amber, each behind a pair of visors. She only hoped her set would shield what her own eyes might be betraying.

Scar stared back at Lex, a smile forming behind his mandibles. There was that strange sensation again, the flutter in his gut whenever he and Lex looked at each other. He had to admit that he liked her a lot. And he assumed, or rather hoped, that Lex felt the same way about him. But was the feeling between them mutual?

If only they were alone, and there wasn't an infestation of hard meats to hunt down and Shadow wasn't breathing down their necks.

Then they all came to a sudden halt. The pair tore their eyes from each other to look ahead; and the moment was lost.

Shadow had brought them to a halt right at the stairwell that would take them down into the subway system. The place was buzzing with chattering voices. Commuters jostled here and there, pushing and shoving their way past each other, desperately trying to get down to the platform before the next train home left, or to grab the next cab that drew up on the curb.

The three of them stood by the railings, well out of the way of the sea of people and briefcases.

"One thing's for certain, we're not getting down that way," said Scar, irritably. "I've never seen so many oomans!"

"I have," sniffed Shadow. "Not this lively, of course." He added with a satisfied sneer.

Lex ignored him. "Isn't there another way in?"

"These tunnels are our quickest and most straight forward route available," Shadow hissed. "Unless you fancy going in through the front door, this our only way down there. All we have to do is… clear a path." He smirked, holding out his wrist blades, ready to extend the blades.

"Don't you even think about it," Lex hissed, grabbing hold of Shadow's wrist. She was far too weak to put up much of a fight, but a warning growl from Scar made Shadow drop his arms to his side.

"Got any better ideas?" he hissed, ripping his arm out of Lex's grasp. "You're an ooman; you now how these things work. You come up with a better plan."

Lex pondered for a moment.

"You're right," she said at last. "I do know how these things work; and unlike you two, I don't stick out in a crowd like a sore thumb. Scar, hold this." She added, passing her combi stick to the yautja grasping her arm.

Scar took it, confused. He was even more confused, and a little disappointed, when Lex's arm slipped from his grasp, severing the connection, and she faded into existence. None of the other oomans seemed to notice her. They just walked straight past her, in too much of a hurry to notice a dark skinned female popping up out of nowhere.

Lex took her visors off and winked at the air where the two predators had stood.

"I hope you two are good at climbing," she said, her voice drowned to passers-by by the droning babble. "Got any suction cups or anything in that utility belt of yours?"

-------------

"I can't believe I'm doing this!" Shadow hissed angrily. "Oomans are prey. They're supposed to hide from us; not the other way around!"

"Stop complaining!" Scar growled. "You'll give us away! Just follow Lex and stick to the plan."

Scar had to admit that the conditions weren't exactly comfortable. Both yautja crawled along the ceiling, gravity discs clamped onto their hands and knees, following the dark-skinned woman below them.

"Do you really trust her?" Shadow sneered. "How do you know she isn't luring us both into a trap?"

There was a moment of silence. Scar didn't exactly want to share his personal feelings with this hunter, not only because they were dangling precariously above a long line of queued oomans; but because he didn't really know how he could explain it, keeping his true emotions under wraps while getting Shadow off his back at the same time.

"I would trust Lex with my life." Scar replied, finally. "It is still hers after all."

There was another long pause. Scar crawled forward, inch by inch, following his companion as she progressed slowly forward. The speed oomans moved at was most infuriatingly slow; either in the streets or underground. At least she was nearly at the ticket booth.

"What does she mean to you, really?" came a hiss from behind.

Scar stopped, frozen on the spot. Shadow hadn't moved since he had last spoke, and was several yards behind him. He didn't answer. He didn't know how to answer. He just stared down at the line of oomans beneath him, their voices droning and echoing around the tunnel.

Scar shuddered, remembering the voice that had droned in his mind as he lay unconscious aboard the yautja mother ship, five years ago. The voice that belonged to the ooman woman he was now watching over. He jerked back to his senses, watching Lex hand the ooman sitting in the booth some money, and receiving a small piece of paper in return. As she walked through a mechanised barrier, he followed, ignoring Shadow who followed suit, silent once more.

Lex walked out onto the platform, joining the commuters which continued to pile up around her. She backed up towards the wall, slipping her visors back on, scanning the ceiling for any sign of the yautja.

"Nice shades, lady!"

Lex just ignored rowdy the teenager and went back to scanning the ceiling for her companions. At last, she found them, clinging to the ceiling on the opposite wall, reminding her of a pair of very badly dressed Spidermen. She nodded to them, and Scar replied in kind. All they had to do now was wait.

Finally, the train pulled into the station, its breaks squealing loudly. As soon as the doors opened, the platform seemed to empty in a matter of seconds, with almost everyone in the station squeezing in, ignoring protests from those already on and those leaving the train. In the midst of all the confusion, Lex cloaked, and dissolved into the shadows.

She waited while the platform emptied, getting as close as she could towards the end of the platform where the yautja waited. As more people piled onto the train, more filled the platform. Lex was starting to worry. If they couldn't see her, they might push her in onto the track and in front of the train as it started moving. She pushed her worst case scenario to the side, and waited, flat against the wall as the platform refilled.

Finally, with a beep and a hiss from the mechanism, the doors finally closed. The horn sounded, and the train moved forward, gathering speed until it was gone with a rush and a roar, a great blast of wind following in its wake.

As soon as the last car had passed the platform, Lex dropped down onto the track bed. Ballast crunched under her feet as she made her way towards the tunnel entrance. As she reached it, two loud crunches told her that the yautja were behind her.

"Let's go," she said. "We've got five minutes to find somewhere off the track before the next train comes.

The two hunters growled in agreement. Shadow walked ahead as usual, Lex and Scar following, linking arms again and deactivating Lex's cloaking.

The light grew weaker and weaker as they made their way through the tunnel. Lex switched to night vision, and stared around the tunnel. The wooden sleepers were caked in moss and sodden through, making them slippery underfoot. Water dripped from the ceiling in a steady rhythm, in some places forming patches of black, slimy mould. The rails themselves were rusty and thick with grime, with mice scuttling between them as they progressed.

Lex wasn't afraid of the dark. In fact, she was enjoying this little adventure. This was just another cave, except it was a lot more level with railway tracks running through it. She'd been down an abandoned gold mine with her father when she was just a kid, and this was almost exactly the same experience; apart from the ground being relatively even, no danger of cave ins, and the fact that she was grasping the arm of 7.5 foot tall alien.

Lex felt at home here. There was a strange sensation of nostalgia about the place that took her back to the days before the trip to Antarctica, when she would have done things like this on a nearly daily basis.

A sudden blast of an electric horn snapped Lex out of her daydream. She whirled around, Scar turning with her. In the distance, headlamps glared in the darkness. And they were getting nearer, coming at them at an incredible pace.

The train was early.

Before Lex could do anything else, Scar grabbed her around the waist and galloped off at an incredible speed, charging blindly forward through the tunnel.

Lex peered back from under Scar's arm.

"It's gaining on us!" she cried.

Scar growled and tried to go faster, but no matter how hard he pushed himself, the train behind them was closing in, swallowing the rails and sleepers as it approached. Scar glanced back quickly, scanning the width of the train and the width of the tunnel. There was no way they'd be able to squeeze into the gap between tunnel and train, unless they both suddenly shrunk to the size of mice. Scar growled angrily. He was cornered.

The train was now so close that Scar was sure that any moment it was going to ram into him. He shook off the sickening thought and looked ahead. Shadow was nowhere to be seen.

How had he…?

Then a strong hand grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him roughly to the side, falling forwards slightly as he and Lex smashed into a stone wall.

Scar looked to the side. The train shot past them in a flash of light and wind. It was gone in a matter of seconds, the click and clack of wheels being the only proof of its movements, or even existence.

That had been close. Too close.

He looked around, taking this new setting in. He was now crouched in what appeared to be a small side tunnel, the floor covered with the same rocky ballast that the tracks ran on.

Scar shook himself, and looked down at Lex, who was still pressed against his chest plate, trembling slightly.

"You alright?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She just nodded a couple of times, and grasped his arm even tighter. Scar stared down at her. He understood.

"Near death experiences are getting to be a habit." he said, bringing his arm up a little and wrapping it round her. In his embrace, she relaxed a little, and her breathing got steadier. Scar understood that this type of act was comforting to an ooman in distress, and he had to admit that he found it rather pleasant as well.

That odd sensation resurfaced again as Scar held her, his talloned hand gently rubbing her shoulder. He looked down at Lex and smiled from behind his mask. For the second time that day, he wished for the two of them be alone. Together.

Lex looked up at him, her visors slipping off her face. She didn't retrieve them at once. She just stared into his face, a weak smile forming on her face.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

Scar answered with another gentle rub of her shoulder, and retrieved the visors and handed them back to her. When she'd slipped them back on, the two sat in silence for a while, regarding each other.

Lex could feel that odd sensation growing stronger. So could Scar. They held each other closely, crouched in the tunnel's entrance.

"What are you doing?"

Shadow's voice brought the two of them back to Earth with a bump. They turned to see older yautja was looking down at them. His mask hid his expression, but Lex had a sickening feeling that he was looking at them with a mixture of suspicion and bewilderment.

Lex was starting to feel uneasy again.

"Inspecting her for injuries," Scar said after an awkward pause. "Got to make sure she's in a suitable condition to be fighting hard meats."

"By rubbing her shoulder and embracing her?"

"It helps to ease stress." Scar retorted

"Right…" said Shadow, turning away, sarcasm clear in his voice.

Lex had a feeling he knew something that he wasn't letting on. But Shadow seemed to have lost interesting them. He was looking around, taking in the new environment.

"Were exactly are we?" she asked, getting to her feet. She felt reluctant to let Scar go, but it didn't confuse her this time. Lex was starting to understand what _it_ was between the two of them.

"You're the ooman; I'd thought you were the expert." Shadow sniffed.

Lex ignored him, and looked around, taking the place in. The tunnel they were in was quite short and broad, with easily enough width for three fully grown men to stand side by side (although Shadow made it took like now there was only room for half of one). At the other end of the tunnel, Lex could make out another track, but this one looked in even worse a state than the one they'd just left. Rust, grime and mould seemed to dominate the place.

"This must be one of the service tunnels the maintenance workers use," she said, stepping out onto the darker, damp ballast.

"They're not exactly doing much of a good job," Scar commented, stepping out after her and peering around at the new tunnel. "This place looks like it hasn't been used for years."

"Probably hasn't," said Lex. "The line we were just on is the main line, which goes round in a loop under the city. There's a whole bunch of disused tracks down here in case there's an accident or something on the main one. It's sort of an alternative route in case the main passage gets blocked."

"Fascinating." Shadow sniffed, not bothering to disguise his sarcasm.

Lex ignored him. She turned to Scar. "Is he always like this?"

"Pretty much," Scar replied. "Problem is, he's the only one with a working Sat-Com; so we'll just have to put up with it for now."

"Speaking of which…"

Shadow stepped before them, the wrist outstretched. A small, 3D building floated in mid air, a perfect replica of the one he'd scanned earlier that day. Lex watched as the image expanded until it was large enough for them all to see clearly, before another layer formed beneath it, spanning out like a plan of a maze.

The word that Lex tried not to think of was labyrinth. For all she knew, there was a monster lurking down there in the darkness. Not a Minotaur, but something much, much worse.

Slowly, the main building faded from view and the maze dominated the space in which it had been, projected in red light which shone bright enough to light up the tunnel.

Time to find their way in.

_Look out, Redway._ Lex thought. _I'm coming._


	15. Unanswered Questions

"Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Yes,"

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"YES!"

Shadow was starting to find this ooman woman particularly annoying; again.

"The Sat-Com clearly shows that our route into the building is at the end of this tunnel. And don't ask if I'm sure or not. I know it's the right way."

Lex was starting to find the predator particularly annoying; again.

"Sorry, oh fearless leader," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "I just think it's a bit odd that the entrance into Redway's building would be at the end of a tunnel with a railroad running through it."

Shadow ignored her; but Scar turned to her, frowning behind his mask.

"What's so odd about it?"

Lex turned to him, glad that at least one of the hunters treated her with respect. Her cheeks turned a bit pink at that thought, but she quickly pushed it to one side.

"Well, the subway's only used for moving people around."

"What about freight?"

"That all comes into the city by truck."

"But transport on ooman roads moves so slowly! Those _traims_ –"

"Trains, Scar."

"Yes, them. Well, it would be a lot faster moving goods down here. It would certainly ease congestion on the roads, and would be a lot safer to the public, and a great deal cleaner and efficient."

"You're starting to sound like a politician."

"A what?"

"Oh, never mind. Look, my point is that it's a bit weird that Redway would have a major public transport system running directly into or alongside the entrance to his vault. Someone could easily stumble across it."

"Not many people come down here. I haven't seen anybody apart from us."

"That's not the point. Scar, Redway's hiding something, and it would be a bit stupid to put it in a place where just anybody could stumble into it. It would be like you two going on a hunt in the middle of a heavily armed army base without cloaking on."

"I sort of see what you mean."

"Would you two shut up?" Shadow growled from in front. "I'm trying to concentrate."

Lex shot a dirty glance at the hunter's back. "Shadow, we've been wandering around in the darkness for the past three hours now, and all I've seen is railroad tracks, a very grumpy yautja, and…" Lex faltered. "A blocked tunnel."

They all came to a complete stop. Up ahead of them, just past a curve in the tunnel, was a sight that aroused Lex's suspicions yet again: an enormous expanse of metal that filled every inch between ceiling and floor, barring their way.

They could go no further.

"Why the hell would someone want to board up one of these tunnels?" Scar growled angrily.

"To stop people getting in," Lex answered, scanning the blockade through her visors. "I told you Redway was hiding something. Is this our way through, Shadow?"

Shadow remained silent, scanning the wall with his far superior equipment and typing a sequence into his Sat-Com. Half a minute passed before he answered her question.

"Not even close," he hissed. "We're about a quarter of one of your ooman miles away from the entrance to the complex."

He fell silent again, inspecting the new obstacle. Scar began scanning it too.

It wasn't the first time Lex had felt left out during this little trip. The visors Scar had given her were handy, but they were nothing compared to those of the two yautja.

"Interesting…"

Scar's voice made Lex drop her chain of thought.

"What is?"

"Three inches of tungsten steel lining two inch thick layer of lead. This obstruction's not a wall, it's a bulkhead…" Scar said, not taking his eyes off the dark metal.

He tailed off and started typing a combination into his wrist device. Lex went back to scanning the obstacle.

"I can't see a mechanism of a crease," she said. "How are we going to get through it?"

"Easy, blast it into dust." Shadow hissed, the plasma castor on his shoulder whirring into life, the barrel glowing electric blue.

"And the security?" Lex hissed back.

"Them too if we're lucky." Shadow replied, a small sphere of energy forming in the barrel.

Lex was just wondering how to stop the hunter, when there was a small click.

Lex turned to see the bulkhead, which must have been at least two tonnes of solid metal, rise up into the ceiling, retreating bit by bit until finally gone from sight, replaced by a continued curve in the never-ending tunnel.

Lex peered at the roof of the tunnel, noticing a large cavity in the ceiling that the bulkhead had retreated into. She could see the base of the dark metal barrier continuing its ascent, before finally coming to a stop, at least three feet above the roof of the tunnel.

She turned to the two yautja. Scar was still fiddling with his wrist device, looking particularly smug. Shadow, meanwhile, was powering down his plasma castor with a growling hiss.

"Won't you let me have any fun?" he asked accusingly.

Scar ignored his comrade's protest and continued typing the sequence. Lex thought it wise to wait until he was finished before questioning the hunter.

"What did you do?" she asked finally.

"It's operated by a signal via remote control," Scar explained. "There's a little sensor in the roof. I copied the signal, and voila."

"Impressive," Lex commented.

Scar didn't register her compliment. "And we've got ten seconds before the locking mechanism resets."

Lex barely had time to open her mouth before the humming drone of machinery came from above. The barrier was descending back down towards the tunnel floor.

Without warning, a muscular arm caught Lex around the waist and she was jerked suddenly forwards.

Scar leapt forward, narrowly avoiding the bulkhead as its fell to earth with a mighty crunch, shielding Lex from flying ballast.

When the dust cleared, Scar straightened up, helping Lex to her feet.

"You okay?"

"A little warning, next time?" Lex replied in mock-annoyance.

Scar chuckled and Lex couldn't help but smile.

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks again. Scar was holding her firmly, but gently against his chest, having not yet released her. Behind the cold armour plating, Lex could have sworn she could feel the mighty hunter's heart, beating in time with her own.

"Would you two get a grip?"

Lex and Scar turned to see Shadow standing just beyond the curve in the tunnel. They released their grip on each other, both feeling more than a little disappointed. Couldn't it just wait?

Shadow answered the unasked question.

"Hurry up! You two are slower than the transport on the surface! You should see this."

Lex frowned, and approached the other predator, Scar quickly catching her on the arm to maintain the cloaking field. Regardless, Lex nearly ran to see what the yautja had discovered.

When she did, she stopped so quickly that Scar nearly knocked her over. Shadow ignored the pair of them, his attention focussed solely on what lay before them.

The tunnel had suddenly opened out into an enormous cavern, the size of a warehouse with great iron poles set in the ground, holding up roof which was plastered with the same dark metal as the bulkhead.

The single track they had been following went a short distance inside before branching out into half a dozen separate roads, each one ending on the edge of bay platforms which spanned outwards from the opposite wall, littered with forklift trucks. The tracks themselves were strewn with freight cars, with a lone diesel locomotive standing in front of a rake these, silent and still.

Nothing moved and nothing stirred. There was not a soul in sight.

Scar broke the silence.

"I thought you said that the subway didn't handle freight."

"It doesn't." Lex replied, wandering almost absent-mindedly forward towards the nearest platform.

Scar followed her, keeping a grip on her shoulder to maintain the cloaking connection. His scan told him that this place was more riddled with cameras than an average ooman building, and if security was this tight, what would happen to Lex if she was exposed? He decided not to risk it, and activated her cloaking, hoping she hadn't noticed.

Lex had noticed, but she pretended that she hadn't. Instead she reached up and gripped the talloned fingers lightly, taking them into her grasp. Scar's hand slipped from her shoulder but the two of them still grasped each other's hand, Lex gently squeezing and Scar massaging with his thumb.

For a few moments they only had eyes for each other…

Until a crunch of ballast from behind told them Shadow was following suite, scanning the chamber and each of the cameras in turn. They both suddenly felt uncomfortable with the older hunter breathing down their necks, releasing each other simultaneously, looking away in embarrassment.

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Scar ventured. "We're supposed to be inside Redway's vault, not an ooman goods depot."

"We didn't," Shadow hissed as they climbed onto one of the platforms. "According to the Sat-Com, the entrance to the main complex is just behind… that door."

A great steel door, not unlike the bulkhead they'd encountered in the tunnel, sat in the middle of the opposite wall, stacks of empty wooden creates stacked on either side.

Lex passed across one lying just outside the nearest freight car, and glanced at the lid. Sure enough, stamped on the lid in red and orange ink, was the infamous bold "R".

"Redway…" Lex said quietly.

"Why the hell would that ooman build himself an underground railway yard?" Scar asked, frowning.

"Ooman pups play with toy trains," Shadow hissed. "Maybe this ooman's just plain childish."

"Finally, we agree on something," said Lex, checking the inside one of the freight cars. "But I don't think so. Redway said he liked to _collect_ things. This must be how he gets them into the building."

"Collect what?" said Scar, his frown not fading. "And why couldn't he just use the road network?"

"He didn't say what," Lex replied, examining the inside of the car. "But this thing is made of at least three inches of steel. What could possibly need such heavy protection?"

"Must be something really valuable, or very dangerous." said Scar.

"Or both." said Shadow, a bored tone in his voice.

"Knowing Redway I wouldn't put either past him," said Lex, stepping out of the car. "All of these cars are empty, but whatever was in them he was trying to hide. But it still doesn't make sense… why would he be using rail system which only goes in a circle around New York?"

"Who cares?" Shadow hissed. "Can we just hurry up already? You promised me Kainde Amedha, remember? Not a guessing game on an ooman's personal interests and hobbies!"

"Ignore him," Scar whispered as he and Lex followed Shadow to the end of the platform. "He gets grouchy if he goes for a day without making a kill."

"Then he must fail at hunting every day," Lex replied as they approached the older yautja. "You told me he's always like this, remember?"

Scar gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Shadow turned to face the pair of them.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing."

Shadow slowly turned away from the other two and went back to fiddling with his wrist device. Scar cautiously walked up alongside him, closely followed by Lex.

"Well, fearless leader, what's next?"

Shadow ignored Lex and continued punching in the sequence into the device.

"There's a twelve digit combination to the locking mechanism on the door," Scar explained, peering over Shadow's shoulder and beginning to fiddle with his own wrist device. "Shadow's trying to crack it to get us through. But if we open that door, the security sensors all over the building are gonna go haywire."

"Is there any way of, I dunno, masking it or something?" Lex asked, hoping she didn't sound too worried.

"Already on it," Scar replied, still fiddling with the handset and plugging a cable from the control panel Shadow was working on into the wrist device. "I've hacked into the security mainframe, made a copy of everything that can be seen on the sensors at this precise second, and I'm feeding it into the system as a continuous loop. I'm also disabling any trip systems or thermal sensors throughout the complex. They won't see or hear a thing."

He said all of this very fast.

Lex stared.

"Cool," she said at last. "You lot have gadgets for everything!"

"Well, almost," said Scar with a modest smile. "That should be done, about… now!"

The wrist device gave a small beep, and Scar disconnected the cable.

"Done," he said.

"That was fast!" Lex commented.

"Yeah, that got me, too," said Scar, frowning again from behind his visors. "That's the second time today ooman technology has linked simply too well with that of yautja design…"

"Think yourself lucky," Shadow hissed as he fed a cable into the control panel. "All it means is less work for us."

Lex ignored him. Scar was right. This was getting weird. There were simply too many unanswered questions.

She was just about to try and pursue the subject further, when Shadow's wrist device beeped loudly, and the great metal doors slowly parted, giving way to…

A deep, gaping hole. It was an elevator shaft.

Lex wasn't afraid of heights. Years of climbing mountains and glaciers had left her unafraid of such simple phobias, but the sight was still a bit unnerving. It was a sheer drop, with only a pair of steel cables hanging in front of them to climb down. With the visors, she could only just see the bottom, or rather the roof of the elevator, about nine stories down.

"We've got ten seconds before the lock resets," Shadow hissed, jumping into the shaft and grabbing onto the cable. "I suggest the two of you hurry up if you're still serious about coming."

Lex down into the shaft. Already she could hear the sound of whirring machinery. The doors were closing.

"Lex?"

She turned to see Scar squatting on the floor with his back to her.

"Get on."

"You don't need to tell me twice."

Lex scrambled onto the yautja's back, Scar taking hold of her combi stick and attaching it to his belt. He had only just straightened up when the doors began to close. Scar gave a great running leap, and grasped hold of the cable, sliding down a little as the doors shut behind them.

Lex clung to the yautja's shoulders, her hands slipping on the armour.

"Scar… I'm slipping."

Scar grunted in reply and, praying that Shadow had got safely out of the way, he let go of the cable.

Lex bit back a scream as they went into a freefall, the metallic roof of the elevator rushing up to greet them.

Scar sensed her fear, but ignored it as he turned Lex around in mid air, holding her in his arms. Before Lex could say or do anything, Scar hit the elevator with a sickening thud, his powerful legs acting like shock absorbers and cushioning the impact.

"And you told me to keep a low profile." Shadow hissed from beside them.

Scar quickly put Lex down as Shadow bent down and unfastened the grate on the roof, giving way to the elevator itself. After checking the compartment for any unwanted guests, he slipped through the hole, soon followed by Lex, with Scar bringing up the rear.

Lex stared around.

"This thing's huge!" she said. "Must be the service elevator they use for moving whatever was in those cars around."

"Where are we now?" Scar asked, brushing the thick dust which coated the elevator roof from his netting and armour.

"We're currently on Floor 0," said Lex, looking to the small map on the elevator wall and the dial above the door. "This is far down as this elevator goes, but the one Redway took me down in took us way lower than this."

Scar was replacing the grate on the elevator roof.

"How much further?" he asked as he fastened it secure.

"Quite a bit," Lex replied. "That was the very bottom floor, Floor -13. The Hard Meats are down there, somewhere, but we can't go any further in this. We'll have to find another way down."

"Well," Shadow hissed. "Hurry up and open the doors. There's a clutch of Hard Meat with my name on it!"

"You're certainly psyched!" Lex commented, pressing the button. "But after all that's happened I wouldn't mind a taste of revenge."

"See, I told you she was a warrior." Scar smiled, patting Lex on the back.

Lex smiled at the predator. A smile which turned to an open mouthed gape as the doors opened, revealing a sight which left her speechless, in a mixture of awe and fear.

Hi guys,

Sorry the chapter took so long.

Things have been a bit… painful lately.

I was helping my little bro out with his paper round, when a car pulled out of nowhere, made me swerve to avoid him, knocked me off my bike and broke my wrist!

And to add insult to injury the bastard drove off and left me lying in a heap on the pavement! =( =( =(

So, anyways, I'm stuck in plaster for the next month and a half, and am finding it very difficult to write with only one hand. I'm going back to the hospital soon for another x-ray, but in the mean time I'm stuck with my right arm and hand in plaster.

The next chapter will be written, but it may take a while.

Anyways, thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the summer.

Good Hunting,

SteelPredator


	16. Floor 0

"What…the…hell?"

After spending the past few hours in near-total darkness, Lex found herself blinking uncontrollably, half-blinded by the light pouring in through the elevator doors. As her eyes got more accustomed to the light, and she mentally switched the visors' setting from night to normal vision, she struggled to take in what lay before her.

It wasn't the light. It was the sheer awe of it all.

The elevator opened up into a large square room, roughly a mile in both length and width, lit by thousands upon thousands of cylindrical light bulbs hanging from the ceiling in cages like those in a warehouse.

The chamber may have resembled a warehouse, but its layout couldn't be more different.

Before them were row upon row of glass cases, each varying in size, and lit by a small light set in the top of each. These were the exact same cases Lex had seen in Redway's vault, but their contents she couldn't make out.

One thing was for certain. They definitely weren't eggs.

Her eyes strayed further back along the rows of cases, making out what looked like pieces of very complicated looking equipment behind velvet ropes. She wandered forward a little into this mysterious new environment, closely followed by the yautja.

"Oh my god…" she breathed. "We're in a museum!"

She wandered over to one of the glass cases. Inside, sitting on a small purple cushion was a metallic dish the size of a dinner plate. What looked like a cracked glass sphere lay in the middle, the outside covered in bizarre-looking symbols, severed wires sticking out of the base on obscure angles. The outside was blackened with burn marks, and was badly dented and scratched in places.

Scar and Shadow meanwhile were staring with wide eyes, scanning the entire area.

"An alien museum…" Shadow hissed quietly. "Someone's got a hobby!"

"Three guesses who," Scar said sarcastically, joining Lex at the case. "Looks like we've found what Redway's been hiding after all. I knew I could smell something odd about this place!"

They began to walk slowly along the aisle which separated the two rows of cases. The two yautja stared down at the cases and their contents as they passed by, flicking from one to the next with more of an air of concern than any real curiosity, but Lex couldn't take her eyes off them.

"He must have spent a fortune on this stuff!"

Shadow gave a mocking, almost laughing growl. "This is just a load of space junk!"

"Even so, what's it doing on Earth in one massive underground, heavily-guarded collection?"

Shadow hissed and walked ahead of the other two, peering around for something even remotely interesting.

"Do you recognize any of this?" Lex asked, turning to the remaining yautja.

"Not all of it," Scar replied, glancing around the rows of glass. "But that thing there is- or rather was- a holographic generator. It's in a pretty sorry state, too. Looks like it fell out of orbit and hit the Earth. Hard."

"And what about that?" Lex asked, pointing to the next case.

"An anti-gravity booster; most of the circuitry's been burnt out."

"And that?"

"A CLD- Compact Laser Deluxe; what's left of one anyway."

"And tha-"

"Chunks of meteorite, a slipstream engine fuel cell, a section of a scout ship's heating system, approximately ten grams of moon dust, several pieces of piping from a ship's plumbing and drainage system, and an empty rations container." Scar said quickly.

"In other words… junk." Shadow hissed. "We might as well have turned up in a tech-yard or a garbage planet. The only difference is the smell."

"You have planets for garbage?" Lex frowned at the older predator. "And what's a tech-yard?"

"It's the galactic equivalent of an ooman scrap yard," Scar replied. "Scavengers collect anything metal floating in space- derelict ships, remains of probes and satellites, you name it- and bring it in to be broken up ready for smelting. And yes, we do use uninhabited for waste disposal before it gets incinerated."

"That's disgusting!"

"That's rich coming from someone whose species just buries any waste in massive holes in the ground." Shadow hissed, wandering ahead of the other two. "At least we make some effort to recycle resources."

"We're straying from the point!" Lex growled. "What I want to know is what Redway's doing with anything alien in the first place!"

"Fair point," said Scar, bending over another case. "Hey, can you read this for me?"

A case holding a complex-looking piece of alien technology bore a large label just below the glass.

"Can't you…" Lex trailed off, trying not to laugh. "You can't read?"

"Just because I speak ooman doesn't mean I'm fluent in every aspect of your language." Scar growled. "Please, this is important."

Lex walked over to the case the yautja was standing over. This one contained another large, dish-sized disc, blackened and burned beyond recognition. She turned her attention to the label and read:

"Roswell, 1947."

Lex felt her heart skip a beat. "Roswell? As in the Roswell UFO Incident?"

"The very same," Scar said, not taking his eyes off the charred remains. "And _this_ is the cause of it; a guidance system which malfunctioned as a hunting party made their way to Earth."

"So the Roswell aliens were-"

"Yautja, yes." Scar said calmly, scanning the piece of equipment over. "A dark chapter in the history of our race; the first time humans oomans have been made aware of us on a global scale."

"Are the stories true?" Lex asked, her heart feeling rather light. "Did any yautja… you know, get…"

"Captured? Oh, Paya, no!" Scar almost seemed to grin. "Just another ooman urban myth; and no, the ship wasn't captured, either. The self-destruct mechanism just took a while to go off, that's all."

"And the yautja?"

"Picked up by a recovery vessel within the space of a few days; giving the rumours time to spread, of course."

"What?"

"Err…" Scar looked worried. "Maybe I've said too much."

"No, tell me." Lex persisted. "Why would having humans aware of alien life be a good thing for your species?"

Scar looked even more awkward at this.

"The hunt…" he mumbled at last.

"What? That doesn't make any sense."

"Unlike some, we understand ooman nature, Alexa Woods." Shadow hissed, sounding a lot more sinister than usual (if that was possible). "Oomans are very simple creatures. You lot get scared, you lash out."

"And that helps you how?"

"You oomans put up a much greater fight when you're in a state of fear. The greater the fight, the greater the victory and trophy."

Lex felt her stomach twist.

"You're sick, Shadow, you know that."

"No, I'm perfectly well, thank you."

Lex groaned. Either yautja didn't understand sarcasm, or Shadow was trying to piss annoy her, as per usual.

They were going even deeper into the maze of glass cases, passing more and more strange alien objects, some in better condition than others.

Lex had a strange feeling that she'd just entered a massive Wal-Mart full of alien junk.

After spending what seemed like an age staring at various pieces of warped and twisted metal, they turned a corner; and a horrible scene met Lex's eyes.

At first she thought she might throw up.

They had come to another aisle of cases, no different than the others they'd passed before; but their contents couldn't have been more different.

Dead, unseeing eyes stared back at her. Gnarled claws and talons glinted in the flickering light. Skin in every shade of colour sat dully on the velvet cushions. Bulbous, deformed skulls and heads lay on stands, blindly gawping at nothing.

It was a while before Lex found her voice.

"Now that's just wrong!"

"Hey!" Shadow hissed. "That's our culture you're insulting!"

Lex ignored him, as well as the nagging thought in the back of her mind reminding her that her companions slaughtered countless innocent lives for sport.

She looked back along the row of severed body parts, then to Scar.

"How in the…"

"We're not the only species to have visited Earth, you know." said Scar. "Loch Ness, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman; nearly all ooman legends have some truth behind them."

Lex's brain was starting to throb.

"Looks like this ooman's got some yautja blood in him," Shadow hissed, peering into a large case further down the aisle. "This one's been shot to pieces. What a waste of a good trophy!"

As they caught up with him, Lex tried not to look at the bloody mess which had once been an alien's head. Scar, however, was a lot more interested.

"Looks like it crashed, and _then_ got shot to pieces." he growled.

Lex turned and walked away. She didn't feel like staring at what was left of decapitated alien. Again she felt strangely left out.

She wandered absent-mindedly down the aisle, glancing around for something that wasn't totally gross.

At last she settled on an exhibit not too far from her yautja companions. At first, she made it out to be a large silver box decorated with various symbols and markings. What really caught her attention was that it looked very, very familiar. It looked like one of the gadgets Scar and Shadow carried around.

It was.

As Lex wandered closer, her suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed yautja technology.

Namely the self-destruct device that the yautja wore on their left wrist….

…with the wrist still attached.

Lex recoiled in horror.

Familiar scaly skin and talloned fingers lay beneath a layer of thick black netting, covered only by the mysterious alien device, and a thin layer of florescent green along the severed flesh.

A yautja arm lay in the case, unmoving and silent.

"…Scar…" Lex breathed.

"What?"

"You'd better take a look at this."

Lex didn't take her eyes off the case as the two yautja approached. She heard their talloned feet clicking on the marble floor, the clinking of their armour and that strange clicking they spoke in, as well as the gasping growl and hiss from Scar and Shadow.

"It's been stuffed." she said simply.

"I can see that," Shadow hissed. "What I want to know how in the name of Paya did this ooman managed to get it!"

"Read it, please." Scar said quietly.

There was a quaver in his voice that Lex had never heard before. It was a quiver of terrible sadness. She was just about to ask her companion what was wrong, when she remembered their chat in her apartment…

She looked down at the label.

"Los Angelis, 1997."

"Los Angelis…"

Scar began to tremble a little.

"…My father…"

"That's your… oh my God." Lex stumbled back a little. "Oh Scar, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Shadow hissed. "You didn't play any part in this, did you?"

Lex shot a glare at the older hunter.

"You're not exactly helping, you know."

Shadow snarled, and stalked away.

"He should feel honoured. His father must have put up a good fight to be made trophy-worth."

Lex ignored him and stepped forward to stand beside Scar.

"Hey, you okay?"

Scar didn't answer. He just stood there, leaning heavily on the metal stand that supported the metal stand that supported the case. He still wore his mask, so she couldn't see his expression.

He didn't look at her. He just continued staring into the case, shaking a little.

Lex gingerly put her hand onto his, squeezing gently. Scar immediately grabbed hold of her smaller fingers, slipping them into his grasp. Lex gave a small whimper when he began held her hand in a near vice-like grip. What surprised her most was a small bead of hot, clear liquid landing on her skin, sliding down between their palms.

Was he…

Scar quickly let her go.

"I'm sorry," he lamented.

"It's okay," Lex smiled, gripping his hand again, massaging his palm with her thumb.

Scar gripped her hand gently, careful not to crush her smaller fingers.

There was a long silence

"… it isn't necessarily your dad's, you know." Lex said, eventually. She knew Scar probably wouldn't believe her, but she wanted to ease the pain a little at least. "Could be any yautja's."

"It's not that." Scar said quietly. "I barely knew him anyway. It's just…"

He trailed off, still not looking at her. Lex gripped his hand a little tighter.

"Just what?" she asked. "Sometimes it helps to talk."

As she expected, Scar said nothing. After a long silence, he gripped her hand a little more and finally turned to face her. It wasn't the first time Lex wished that the visors gave her x-ray vision. But although she couldn't see his face, she could sense a great tenderness hidden behind Scar's cold, unforgiving metal mask, churning with emotion like a stormy sea.

At last Scar spoke.

"No matter what I do, no matter where I go, I always lose those who matter to me the most. My father died when I was just a pup, and my mother followed shortly before I was sent to Earth for my blooding ritual; when we first met."

Lex stared back into the dark visors. In spite of the dark glass, she could have sworn she could see those deep amber eyes of his. Showing the same tender look he'd shown her all those years ago…

…just before he marked her as a warrior.

"Not long after that, my master went the same way, and it was my fault. Because I let my guard down. Because I let my mind stray from the hunt. Because I didn't stay focussed. I forgot the most basic rule of the hunt. I let my prey get the better of me. If I hadn't been so foolish, he'd still be alive."

Lex wanted to question the yautja as to what he meant, but she knew Scar was in too much of a state already. She needed to comfort him, not to make him relive his worst experiences.

"I just feel so alone," Scar said, turning away from her and bowing his head. "Everyone I ever cared about was taken away from me. I am alone in the universe, Lex. I have no one. No one."

"You've still got me."

Scar turned back to Lex and stared at her.

Lex didn't know whether she'd said a bit too much. Anyone would think she was mad to open her heart to an alien hunter, but she could empathize with Scar. She'd lost her father when she was twelve years old, making their way back down from a particularly difficult mountain expedition. Not long after that, she'd lost her mother in a similar way to Scar's. She'd just… slipped away.

She had no brothers or sisters, and her closest relatives lived halfway round the world. In Spain.

Like Scar, she was alone, too.

Scar stared back at the small ooman woman, his eyes and heart softening again with emotion. Not with sadness and grief. It was something else; something warm and lifting. It was a totally different kind of feeling.

Behind her visors, he could see her dark eyes staring back into his, deeper somehow with some new emotion. She understood exactly what he was talking about; exactly how he felt.

From first hand experience.

Scar knelt down before her, staring into her eyes for a moment before enfolding her in his arms.

"You're right."

Lex was a little taken aback at first, but she felt herself returning the embrace regardless.

She could feel her emotions churning inside her again, but now she was feeling somehow at peace. In spite of everything that had happened, the hundreds of dangers they'd faced, the countless hardships they'd been through, she felt completely, totally safe with Scar.

He had her. And she had him.

She reached up a little, wrapping an arm around his neck and burying her hand in his dreads. She could feel Scar's chin resting lightly on her shoulder, and another hot tear seep into her clothes. She heard her combi stick drop to the floor, but she made no attempt to retrieve it.

For now, the two of them only had eyes for each other.

Lex could feel that peculiar feeling welling up inside her again. A feeling she was just beginning to understand.

Lex cared about Scar; a lot. She wasn't ashamed to admit that she liked him, either; a lot. There was no doubt in her mind that Scar felt similarly, if not the same way about her.

But… could it ever work?

She'd felt something all those years ago in Antarctica, a spark of something that made her heart feel light and strange. Now that spark had returned, and a small flame was starting to flicker into life.

She suddenly felt Scar draw away a little, still holding her but pushing her back slightly. She looked up into his face, still hidden by metal, but it was as if it wasn't even there. His eyes were still clouded with emotion, and she could feel hers burning with the same.

It took her a little by surprise when Scar spoke again.

"You're right, Lex. We still have each other and nothing will ever change that. Nothing."

Lex felt her heart give a sudden leap.

"Nothing."

Once again, Lex wished that Scar wasn't wearing his mask.

But now her reasoning was different.

She could feel herself unconsciously drawing up towards his face. Everything around them seemed to fall away. She'd forgotten all about the alien exhibits, the underground depot, Shadow, even about Redway and the alien eggs. Her mind felt blank. She was letting her heart take over.

Scar could feel reality slowly slipping away, too, as he slowly drew his face closer to Lex's. He knew enough about ooman culture and mannerisms to know that this was an act that both species shared…

… It was an expression of pure, unsuppressed emotion between two beings…

…Through physical contact…

He wanted to lift his hands to his face to remove his mask, but they felt limp and heavy. He was too caught up in the moment to do anything. They were mere inches apart…

… When a loud, gasping hiss of horror snapped them both back to reality.

They wheeled around, glancing around them. Shadow was nowhere to be seen.

In spite of their shared disappointment, they both drew a heavy sigh of relief.

At least Shadow hadn't seen that little display.

Scar jumped to his feet, while Lex snatched up the combi stick from the marble floor. Together they pelted down the aisle, whirling round a corner with Scar's talons screeching loudly as the dug into the stone.

Shadow stood a short way down this new, wider aisle, locked in a defensive stance, his wrist blades fully extended, staring into one of the cases.

"Shadow?"

The older yautja didn't answer, he just stared, transfixed.

"What's the matt-"

Lex saw quite clearly what the matter was.

"HOLY SHIT!"

Lex heard a growling screech from Scar, cursing loudly in his native language and extending his wrist blades.

Lex stumbled backwards, fumbling for her combi stick, frozen in terror.

No. Not again!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry people, but you're going to have to wait until the next chapter to find out what! ;)

I'd just like to say thanks TO everyone who sent me a "Get Well Soon" review. Thanks, guys. It means a lot.

My hand's loads better now. I went back to the hospital and it's healing nicely. It's more soft tissue damage than anything else. All it means is I've had to replace my cast with a strap/splint thing. I'm not complaining. I could barely type with that thing on!

So hopefully there won't be such a long wait for the next chapter.

I'm over the moon I don't have to wear that thing for 1 ½ months now! And with my exam results!

The bad news is I've recently had to go in for surgery, which has left both my feet very sore. Then again, that means I've got more time to keep writing SCH since I can't risk getting them knocked, wet, or anything for that matter!

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Enjoy the last few days of summer!

Good Hunting,

SteelPredator.


	17. Parting of the Ways

Finally, after seven hours, he came to, sitting jolt upright in shock.

"Hey! What the?"

Greg looked around, blinking uncontrollably in the intense light. He felt sore and giddy, which only got worse as he regained consciousness. His vision was still foggy.

He leaned back against the cold, hard wall and yelped in pain. There was a bloody lump on the back of his head, throbbing horribly and staining the concrete behind him dark crimson.

Instinctively, he tried to raise his hand to cover the wound, but found he could hardly move them.

As his senses returned, he felt cold metal on his wrists and ankles, and the soft chink of metal. After what seemed like an age, his vision got clear enough for him to properly make out his bindings.

Cold, cruel black metal chains came into his field of vision, binding his arms above his head from a metal peg set in the wall, his legs cuffed to a similar one in the floor, showing up clearly amongst his filthy clothes. All of his limbs felt numb and heavy. Useless. Dead weight.

How long had he been locked up in here to lose circulation so badly?

As his vision finally defogged, he began to take in where he was.

He was in a small, compact room made of dark, featureless grey concrete. As he looked around he noticed half a dozen large glass cases in the centre of the room, each placed on a small metal podium, at about eyelevel. Each held what looked like a large, leathery ostrich egg, very dark in colour. He frowned when he noticed that five of these "eggs" had opened at the top, sections of the shell curled back like a banana peel. What was more alarming was that the lid of each of the cases which held them looked melted and warped, a large gaping hole burned right through the glass.

The only exception was the case in front of him, completely unscathed with the egg sitting inside, unopened and unmoving.

He eyed the cases for a while before looking back up at the peg set in the wall. He tried straining on it but his arms simply wouldn't move. He growled in his frustration.

A small, strangled groaning noise to his right seemed to answer. Greg turned towards the noise, hoping for some form of help…

… And a horrible scene met his eyes.

Along the wall he was bound to, there were at least five others. Four of them were bound with there hands and legs in chains, while another lay slumped on the floor, limp and lifeless.

Each one had a large, disgusting creature clamped to his faces.

It was like something out of a horror movie.

It looked like some weird cross between an squid and a crab; roughly a foot in length, each was a sickly light brownish-yellow in colour. Thick, fleshy flaps on each side of the body covered the victim's face almost entirely, while a long, segmented tail curled lovingly round their necks. Eight bony finger-like legs were clamped around their heads, anchoring them firmly to each of the bodies.

Greg watched with a mixture of terror and revulsion. As each of the disgusting creatures pulsated grotesquely, the chests of the bodies they were clamped to slowly rose and fell.

They were breathing.

They were alive.

But for how long?

Greg felt as if he was going to retch.

As he tried once again to strain on the chains that held him, he managed to get a better look at the other people he was chained up with. The four that were bound in chains were all dressed in tattered, filthy clothes, all nearly skeletal like himself.

They were all bums. Deadbeats like him.

The man that lay sprawled on the floor was a different case. He was dressed smartly, in a suit and tie, and apart from the disgusting creature clamped to his face was looked very well groomed and clean. There was something… familiar about him.

Like a long lost friend or something.

Greg frowned, turning it over in his mind. The whole place was starting to seem more and more familiar…

_Squelch._

Greg's chain of thought was suddenly interrupted by a strange, sickening noise. He tore his eyes away from the unfortunates alongside him to settle on where the sound had come from.

The case in front of him.

There was a very long pause. Then the egg _twitched._

In the light of the room, Greg could have sworn he could see something moving, pulsating within the leathery shell.

Greg stared, transfixed as the top of egg separated into four sections, mouth open in terror as the sections of shell curled slowly backwards like a banana peel.

Just like the others.

Greg began to panic, his heat hammering even harder than when he'd first laid eyes on those things clamped onto the helpless men's faces. Again he tried to strain at the chains which held him, but his arms were like lead- heavy and dead. He tried again and again, flexing his leg muscles trying to force the peg out of the ground, but to no avail. His legs were paralyzed with pins and needles and his arms were nothing but fleshy rubber.

All he could do was watch helplessly as eight bony legs began writhing at the mouth of the egg, frantically trying to grip the sides of the shell. His heart nearly stopped with terror as all eight legs settled on the sides of the shell before catapulting itself out of confinement and into the glass wall of its case.

Greg tried not to look at the revolting underbelly of the creature, but he couldn't take his eyes off it. It was slimy and wrinkled, like the undersides of the slugs he'd occasionally been forced to eat during bad times on the streets, a large hole, which he guessed to be the creature's mouth, biting savagely at the glass with non-existent teeth, fighting to get out.

For a brief moment, Greg breathed a sigh of relief.

The foul creature was trapped like a goldfish in a bowl. He finally felt safe…

… Until the acrid smell of burning met his nostrils.

The section of glass the creature was attacking had started to blacken and smoke, bubbling in places like the soup the shelters sometimes dished out during the winter.

The glass was melting.

Greg watched, frozen in fear as the glass finally gave way, spilling to the floor and began burning a hole in the concrete. An entire side of the case had gone, hidden in the steam and smoke from the creature's acidic secretions.

Greg couldn't breath. It was as if terror had frozen his heart and lungs.

Without warning, the creature hurled itself through the smoke, aimed directly for his face, a long proboscis perturbing from its mouth, its tail curling into an arch, falling neatly round his neck.

Greg barely had the breath to scream when the creature fell heavily on his face, darkness encompassing everything aside from the squeezing round his neck, and the sickening feeling of something forcing its way down his throat.

---------------------------

Lex stumbled backwards, falling heavily on the marble floor. She stared, terrified at what lay behind the glass.

A great, blunt head stared back at with non-existent eyes, mouth hanging open in a soundless roar, bearing fangs like knives; the second mouth ready to punch a whole through her skull.

It wasn't until Lex realised it wasn't moving that she managed to breathe again.

It wasn't until she realised that the thing was missing a body that she managed to haul herself, still shaking to her feet.

The Kainde Amedha's head stood on a stand, unmoving, and undeniably dead.

Scar and Shadow had lowered their wrist blades, standing transfixed at the creature's head behind the glass.

"Paya…" Scar breathed.

"Now that's what I call a trophy!" Shadow hissed.

Lex approached the two yautja wearily. There must have been something special about this Hard Meat for that kind of reaction.

Was it another queen?

It was. But was nothing like the queen that had attacked her and Scar in Antarctica.

When she finally got in front of the glass, Lex felt her mouth fall open.

The round, blunted head had the same savage jaws, sinister inner mouth, smooth, streamlined shape and mere ghosts of eyes as the Hard Meat they'd encountered in Antarctica, but this one showed some strange, horrifying new traits…

…very familiar traits.

The creature's skin was a sickly dark green in colour, as opposed to the usual glossy jet black shade the creatures collectively shared. The forehead was a lot bigger, wider, with strange patterns in what was left of the skin.

Streaming out of the crown on the creature's skull were multiple long, rubbery protrusions, and the mouth was partially covered by a pair of savage-looking, tusk-tipped secondary jaws.

The dreadlocks and mandibles of a yautja.

The Predalien stared blindly back at them, forever frozen in its silent roar of death.

It was a while before Lex found her voice.

"… Scar? Is that what I think it is?"

Scar didn't answer.

"That depends, what do you think it is?" Shadow hissed.

Lex ignored him, and walked up alongside Scar again.

"Scar?"

Scar didn't even seem to even register her presence. He just stared into the case, his arms hanging loosely by his sides.

After a long pause, he spoke.

"It's a hybrid." He spoke very slowly, blandness heavy in his voice. "…Born from Kainde Amedha and Yautja genetics."

There was a very awkward pause.

"…My genetics."

Unconsciously, Scar's hand reached up to his chest. The armour plating only just covered what had been an enormous gash.

Lex's eyes widened. She remembered what Scar had said in her apartment.

The reason he had learned how to speak English.

"_Well, five years in quarantine having to regrow nearly an entire lung and recovering from a nasty abdominal wound gave me a lot of free time."_

Shadow placed his hand on Scar's shoulder.

"It's okay to feel a little upset, G'raal. No parent wants to outlive their child."

The other two ignored him.

Lex felt cold sweat on her brow.

"H-how did that happen?"

Scar didn't answer. He just stared into the case, shrugging off Shadow's hand, not taking his eyes off the hideous mutation.

"Isn't it obvious?" Shadow hissed.

There was a distinct tone of malicious glee in his voice.

"A Hard Meat larva managed to infect him during his blooding ritual. Just after he marked himself, I think the Healers said. He forgot the most basic rule of the hunt," he added, with a savage grin under his mandibles. "Never let your guard down and always stay alert to everything in your environment."

There was a distinct tone of savage delight in Shadow's voice. It was a teasing, annoying voice that Lex remembered a group of bullies using on her during 3rd grade.

"That mistake cost him the lives of a whole scientific division and even his beloved master. As he said, he's a failed hunter with nothing left but a very irritating ooman whore-"

Scar snapped.

He whirled around and punched Shadow so hard that the older yautja slid backwards across the aisle, before falling to the ground, winded. He stared back up at his comrade and snarled angrily.

Lex stood back, eyes wide as Scar towered over Shadow, his wrist blades bared.

When Scar spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"There's more coming if you don't shut your mouth and keep it shut! I warned you once about insulting Lex, and if you don't stop spewing poison at us both, I'll personally seal your lips myself. Permanently."

Lex trembled a little. The last time she'd seen Scar this angry was when he'd turned on her when she tried to follow him in the pyramid, only a hundred times worse.

For once she was glad he was masked.

Shadow just sniffed.

"Assaulting and then threatening a higher ranking warrior. That is a very serious offence, G'raal." he hissed in his native tongue. "What will the elders say to that? Especially on top of this more-than-friendly relationship you have with this little ooman of yours?"

Scar was shocked, but anger drowned it in half a second.

"Leave her out of this!"

"There's no use trying to deny it. I heard every word."

He put on a mocking, sneering voice.

"_I'm alone in the universe! We still have each other! Nothing will ever change that!"_ Shadow sneered wickedly. "Try the elders or a couple of combi spears on for size!"

Scar's fists were clenched, talons digging into his palm. He was seething. He was so angry his throat seized up so he couldn't do much by snarl as a retort.

Shadow looked up into his comrade's masked face and smirked in satisfaction. He could see his expression plain as day.

"Do you honestly think you'll be able to take her with you? Even if she does bare the mark of the warrior, there's no guarantee the others will slay her on the spot. They wouldn't accept her in a million years! Inferior species have no place within our race, and neither do failed hunters."

Scar's temper boiled over.

He roared, and made to lunge at the other hunter, his wrist blades trained on Shadow's throat.

But something held him back.

He turned to see a pair of smaller, dark-skinned arms wrapped around his own, preventing him from lashing out.

Lex was clinging on for dear life. Her strength was no match for the predator's, but Scar found his strength waning in her grasp.

His heart was beginning to soften again.

"Let me go!" he growled.

Lex shivered at the anger in Scar's voice, but she tried to dismiss it. It was Shadow Scar was angry with, not her. She held on tight.

"Please, Scar, don't."

"Lex, I-"

"He's not worth it!"

Lex could feel her grip slipping. As much as she hated Shadow, she still needed him. They both did.

Scar took a long, deep breath, and let it out with a growling sigh.

He lowered his wrist blades, and stepped away from his opponent.

"I'm not doing this for you," he snarled at a very surprised looking Shadow. "I'm giving you one more chance; the very last one. Don't waste it."

He turned his back on the other hunter, disgusted.

"What was all that about?" Lex asked.

"Nothing."

"Certainly didn't look like nothing. You scared me half to death!"

"Sorry. It's just Shadow just so…"

"Shadow?"

"Yeah."

They both managed a smile.

"But, seriously! I thought you were about to explode! What did he say to make you so steamed, anyway?"

Scar breathed a sigh of relief. He'd forgotten they'd been speaking in their native tongue.

Lex hadn't understood a word.

"I really don't want to talk about it right now. Can we just put it behind us for now?"

Lex frowned, but she nodded.

"Yeah. How's about it Shadow? Truce?"

"Pathetic."

Lex and Scar spun round.

Shadow was nowhere to be seen.

Scar glanced round frantically, trying to catch sight of his comrade.

"You two are just pathetic."

This was when Shadow was at his most dangerous- unseen with plenty of high vantage points.

Although he himself was at risk, Scar was more concerned for Lex's safety. He could hold his own against Shadow, but he knew the other hunter could easily overpower Lex. He quickly backed up against the case, shielding Lex behind him.

Lex tried not to look at the hybrid's terrifying face as she found herself pinned against the glass by Scar. She gripped her combi stick tightly, trying frantically to get a glimpse of their former team mate.

"I told you before I can handle Kainde Amedha easily. You two lovebirds can stick around and sightsee all you want, but I'm out of here."

"Shadow, don't be a fool!" Scar growled out into the darkness. "You can't handle an entire infestation single handed!"

"Besides, you don't even know where to find them!" Lex added. "You'll be stuck wandering around these tunnels until security finds you!"

"Oh yes I do," came a sinister hiss. "Level -13, you said. Thank you, Alexa Woods; you lead me to my prey after all!"

There was a the sound of whirring mechanisms and a short ding of an electric bell, and the two hunters looked round to see a much brighter light flooding in on the other side of the museum.

"The elevator!" Lex cried.

Scar leapt up onto the top of the case, and, praying that the glass wasn't going to give way, stared across the chamber to the open elevator doors.

Shadow stood inside the elevator, clutching the service hatch. Catching sight of Scar, he gave a small, sarcastic wave before jumping up through the hole in the roof. A clanging of metal told Scar that he'd just changed the cover, just as the elevator doors closed.

Scar jumped down onto the floor, fists clenched and growling angrily.

"That bastard! That complete and utter bastard!"

"Scar, let it go." Lex pleaded, taking hold of his wrist. "Like I said, he's not worth it. We don't need him anyway."

Scar stopped shaking, looking at her questioningly.

"We only needed him to get into this place."

"But… the Hard Meats…"

Scar was feeling a little disappointed at the prospect that he wouldn't get his share of Hard Meat trophies.

"Scar, he's seriously pissed off at the moment, and if we go after him he'll just turn on us both. Give him time to cool off, then we'll go after him."

"Not likely. Shadow's not exactly the forgiving type." Scar growled, sourly. "Besides, Shadow can't lay a finger on you."

Lex frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Despite the tense situation, Scar _chuckled_.

"Sorry, it's just so funny; Shadow owing a life debt to an ooman! An ooman he severely dislikes, come to that!"

"WHAT?"

Lex looked dumbfounded.

"You heard me! Look, you saved Shadow's life, so he's honour bound to do the same. He can't touch you."

"What about you?"

Scar smirked.

"Just because I spared his miserable life doesn't mean I get the same treatment. But you saw what I did to him earlier. I can easily hold my own against that snake!"

"You really hate him, don't you?"

"It's not a matter of hate, Lex. It's a matter of loathing. He called you a whore, and in my book, that's unforgivable. He should show more respect."

Lex felt her cheeks going pink again.

Scar really did care.

"Thanks…"

Scar smiled down at her.

"Don't mention it. Now, let's go after the bastard before he causes any more trouble."

With that, the two of them sped down the aisle of case, weaving there way through the maze of glass, finally coming to a screeching stop in front of the elevator doors.

"Level -13, here we come!" Lex grinned.

"Would you do the honours?" Scar grinned.

"With pleasure."

Lex was just about to pres the button, when there was the short ding of an electric bell.

Lex felt her blood run cold as the door slowly opened….

…Revealing a small squad of heavily armed men.

"Ah," Scar breathed. "This… could be a problem."

All eighteen men trained their guns on them, most of them aiming for the gaps in Scar's armour. In spite of their cloaking, their attackers were having no trouble finding their targets.

Scar extended his wrist blades while Lex readied her combi stick.

A sudden, sickening thought hit her.

"If Redway's collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A." she whispered.

There was a blast from a rifle, and Lex slumped to the floor, face down.

"LEX!"

Scar roared in his rage and swiped out at the nearest man, catching him heavily in the shoulder.

The man cried out and fell to the floor in a pool of blood.

Scar barely had time to lash out again when a barrage of shots was fired. The bullets rained down on him, causing agonising pain everywhere they hit. It was like being rained on by angry hornets.

He slumped to his knees, fighting to resist the darkness that was clouding over his mind.

His last sight before the darkness overpowered him, was an image of a dark-skinned ooman woman, slumped on the ground alongside him.

"…Lex…" he gasped, struggling to keep her in his field of vision. "I …failed…"

Scar blacked out even before his body hit the ground, limp and lifeless.

------------------------------------------------------------

Hi guys, it's me again!

Don't worry; I'm not going to kill off our favourite couple.

Yet.

Bad news, I'm afraid.

SCH is going to have to be put on hold, again, because of problems with my broadband.

The free broadband contract I used to have is being withdrawn, so I have to find another provider and get it installed.

This will take time, roughly three weeks.

So, unfortunately, this will be the last chapter in the SCH saga.

For a while, at least.

Don't worry, I will update as soon as I can.

By then, I'll have recovered almost completely.

Anyways, see you all soon.

Please continue to review chapter by chapter. If you've only just read the last chapter, please post a review to let me know how you thought that little soppy love scene went as well as Shadow's little stunt in this chapter.

Good Hunting,

SteelPredator.


	18. Bridging the Gap

"Lex?"

She could see nothing but blackness.

"Lex?"

She could see nothing.

"Lex?"

Feel nothing.

"Lex? You in there?"

Oh my God! Was she-

"LEX!"

Lex felt her eyes jolt open in shock, only to blink wildly at the harsh light blazing down on her face as she looked around frantically, trying to locate the owner of the voice.

"Scar?"

"Who were you, expecting? Johnny Depp?"

"But how-"

"Keep your voice down! They probably bugged this place to listen in on our conversations." he said in a harsh whisper. Then his voice softened. "Are you okay?"

Was that a trick question?

Lex's head was spinning, and she had to keep her eyes glued shut in case the room followed suit, and to keep out of the glare of the light. She felt sickly, giddy and numb all over and her limbs felt like lead.

But she forced her bad temper aside.

Now wasn't the time to be losing her cool.

"I'm fine," she lied. "Just a bit numb." She groaned. "That light's giving me a headache."

"Give me a minute."

There was a sudden screech of metal, a fizzling, sparking sound, and the light went out.

Lex blinked uncontrollably, trying to get the black spots the light had left out of her eyes.

When she finally could see, her eyes bulged open.

This was almost too much.

This scenario was common place in nearly every Sci-Fi movie in existence; and she was slap bang in the middle of one. If some had written it up as a story or had it turned into a movie, she would have found the whole thing as good entertainment. But now she would never watch another alien monster movie again.

She was in a large laboratory, the walls lined with a silvery grey metal as opposed to the usual concrete interior of the Redway's building. The walls themselves were lined with metal shelves and cabinets, with work surfaces dotted in between. Test tubes, Bunsen burners, and all kinds of scientific instruments lined these.

Lex shuddered when her eyes fell on a case of sharp-looking knives.

Glancing to either side, she suddenly realised why she couldn't move and her arms and legs felt like lead.

She was lying on what looked like an operating table of cold, cruel metal. Her arms and legs were secured by heavy-looking steel manacles.

For a moment she felt like she'd just stepped into a Bond movie.

Her visors, bag and combi stick were gone, out of sight. The only thing she could see was the ceiling and what lay directly beside her…

…Which included a certain yautja.

Scar lay on an identical, but slightly larger, table beside her, his talloned hands and feet bound just like hers.

Their faces were roughly at level, and Lex couldn't help but smile at the sight of those beautiful amber eyes. Despite the danger, she felt her heartbeat settle a little, knowing Scar was with her.

The yautja returned her gaze, positively beaming realising she was unharmed.

Ebony and amber connected once more, and both felt their hearts going light again. They were both beginning to understand…

"That better?" Scar asked.

Lex frowned, and glanced down to see that the predator's wrist blades had sliced right through the wiring in the wall, as well as pretty much destroying the protective plastic casing. The hunter's blades themselves had retracted into his metallic wristband…

…Which was one of the few pieces of clothing Scar had left.

All of his armour and equipment had been removed. Even the thermal netting was gone.

Lex felt the heat rising in her face again.

Scar was completely naked apart from his loincloth which their captors had been gracious enough to leave him.

Without his armour, she could see every detail on his muscular torso; every rippling muscle beneath the tawny skin, every nick and scar on his skin carried like a medal of honour, powerful shoulders and muscular arms packing enough power to demolish a building.

She tried not to look at the patches where his skin was stained a shade of olive green; one on his shoulder, one through his stomach and one covering nearly an entire side of his chest.

Despite his alien features, his body was quite human in appearance, only a lot bigger and more muscle-bound.

Lex could feel the longing aching in her very soul. Alien or not, Scar was very… attractive. There was no other word to describe it. They were so near, and yet so far apart.

Scar noticed the direction of her gaze and growled.

When those bastards got back, there was going to be hell to pay! There was no bigger shame than being disarmed and stripped of your belongings by cowardly thieves.

Then he noticed the expression and flushed look in her cheeks. His anger melted and his eyes softened, an impish grin forming under his mandibles.

He silently chuckled. She obviously liked what she seeing.

They hadn't stripped her as they had him. They'd simply taken her visors, cloaking and weapons. And the upper layer of her now ragged clothing, leaving her in a tank top and jeans.

Although he wouldn't admit it, he secretly preferred her in that state. It was more similar to the clothing worn by yautja females, but there was something else to it…

Lex noticed Scar's gaze and sheepishly looked away. Scar looked away in turn, feeling a bit embarrassed.

This wasn't exactly how he'd imagined Lex seeing him like this for the first time.

Lex broke the awkward silence.

"Any idea where we are?"

Scar shook his head. "Not a clue," he growled. "Any ideas?"

"You should both know very well," a familiar voice interrupted them. "You broke in here about four hours ago."

Lex felt her blood starting to boil.

The doors swung open, and a group of people entered the room.

Neither could make their captors out, as they were both facing the ceiling, but as they struggled to look up into their faces, there was the whirring of mechanisms beneath them, and they were raised slowly upwards in their bindings, so they were both on a diagonal. They were both finally able to make out the room properly, as well as their captors.

"Well, well, well; Miss Woods, you certainly are a persistent one, aren't you?"

Lex glared at Redway with a mixture of anger and pure, undiluted venom.

* * *

Shadow straightened up and wiped his wrist blades on the uniform of the nearest guard. It had been too easy in his opinion. Half a dozen armed oomans were no match for the sheer power and ferocity of a yautja, especially one who specialized in stealth tactics.

He left their bodies where they lay. There was no sport in taking worthless trophies, and the loop G'raal had fed into the security system would ensure both they and he would remain unseen and undetected.

He snarled silently, remembering his former hunting partner.

He did have to admit he was more than a little lost. This labyrinth of tunnels was getting him nowhere, and his terrain scanning equipment was acting up horribly, spitting and crackling violently whenever he tried turning it on. He thought it wise to simply leave it off. He couldn't risk any more damage to the systems than had already been done, and the noise itself was very annoying.

_There must be some kind of jamming device set down here_, he thought to himself. He quickly dismissed the thought. _Oomans are too primitive to have that kind of technology, right_? He told himself. But all the same, he was beginning to wonder now.

Stepping over the lifeless bodies, he approached the next stairwell. He'd left the elevator shaft when the contraption itself started rising to grudgingly find an alternative route through the ventilation tunnels, which he'd left as soon as he had the opportunity. It was far too cramped for his bulk. How that ooman spy Yames Dond he'd seen once on an ooman communication network managed it he'd never know.

Shadow descended the stairs half a flight at a time, leaping easily from railing to railing. With a sudden yelp, he slipped, and landed rather painfully on his rump against the far wall. He got up and shook himself, looking with at the railing with icy contempt, which fitted since the entire length of railing was covered in a thin layer of ice, dripping water onto the concrete steps.

Shadow gave a rather painful grin. He was getting close. Very close.

* * *

Hey guys! I'm back!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while.

Not my best or longest work, I know, but it's literally the best I could do.

I've started college now (I think High School is the American equivalent) and I'm inundated with work. My health hasn't exactly been great either, and has cost me a lot in both study and writing time. This really hasn't been the best start to the academic year! LOL!

But, that aside, I'm really enjoying college. I've got a whole new lease on life, and am now studying Biology, Physics, Geography and Geology. WAY better at school! I've also been learning a bit of Japanese on the side, as well as a bit of art. Steam locomotives and anime mainly, and, of course, our favourite Yautja kicking alien ass!

I was originally gonna upload this on Halloween, but my internet clapped out. Plus, this will be the last upload I'll make at this age!

Yep, my birthday's coming up, and I'm seriously psyched! I'll be turning 17 on the 17th of November, 2009. I seriously cannot wait!

Well, anyways, I promise you guys I'll update as soon as I have time to write the next chapter. It will be done before Christmas, I promise.

As always,

Good Hunting,

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Steel Predator.

17/11/09, don't wait up!


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